s port, in the Philadelphia brig
Elizabeth, which was doomed to encounter a succession of disasters.
They had not been many days at sea when the captain was prostrated by
a disease which ultimately exhibited itself as confluent small-pox
of the most malignant type, and terminated his life soon after they
touched at Gibraltar, after a sickness of intense agony and loathsome
horror. The vessel was detained some days in quarantine by reason of
this affliction, but finally set sail again on the 8th ultimo, just in
season to bring her on our coast on the fearful night between Thursday
and Friday last, when darkness, rain, and a terrific gale from the
southwest (the most dangerous quarter possible), conspired to hurl
her into the very jaws of destruction. It is said, but we know not how
truly, that the mate in command since the captain's death mistook
the Fire Island light for that on the Highlands of Neversink, and so
fatally miscalculated his course; but it is hardly probable that any
other than a first-class, fully manned ship could have worked off
that coast under such a gale, blowing him directly toward the roaring
breakers. She struck during the night, and before the next evening
the Elizabeth was a mass of drifting sticks and planks, while her
passengers and part of her crew were buried in the boiling surges.
Alas that our gifted friend, and those nearest to and most loved by
her, should have been among them!

We trust a new, compact, and cheap edition or selection, of Margaret
Fuller's writings will soon be given to the public, prefaced by a
Memoir. It were a shame to us if one so radiantly lofty in intellect,
so devoted to human liberty and well-being, so ready to dare and to
endure for the upraising of her sex and her race, should perish from
among us, and leave no memento less imperfect and casual than those we
now have. We trust the more immediate relatives of our departed friend
will lose no time in selecting the fittest person to prepare a Memoir,
with a selection from her writings, for the press.[A] America has
produced no woman who in mental endowments and acquirements has
surpassed Margaret Fuller, and it will be a public misfortune if her
thoughts are not promptly and acceptably embodied.

[Footnote A: The reader is aware that such a Memoir has since been
published, and that several of her works have been republished
likewise. I trust soon to publish a volume of Madame Ossoli's
Miscellaneous Writings.--ED.