ron
we pulled. None, indeed, but stout-hearted British seamen could have
made way in such troubled waters. Sea upon sea came rolling on after
us. On the summit of one we reached the beach. Before another sea
could follow we had leaped out and dragged our boat high up above the
power of the waters. We set to work, and had the satisfaction of saving
the lives of several of the French crew; but, unhappily, the rope
parted, and in vain we endeavoured to secure another.

A second night passed--a third came, and few were saved. We remained on
the beach to afford all the aid in our power to those still on the
wreck. What occurred on board was not known to us till afterwards. The
Frenchmen endeavoured to launch one of their largest boats, but
discipline was at an end. In vain the officers ordered the men to keep
back--it was right that the sick and wounded should first be removed.
No one obeyed; a hundred and fifty men crowded into her. They shoved
off, a sea rushed on, they were hid from view; the shattered boat and
their lifeless corpses alone reached the shore. Eight hundred human
beings, it is supposed, had by this time perished. Those few who now
reached the shore, aided chiefly, I have a right to boast, by my party,
reported the dreadful condition of the remainder. Numbers were dying of
hunger; the decks were covered with corpses; expedients too horrible to
be believed for sustaining life had been proposed. A fourth day came,
and with it a more serene sky. The sea went down. "A sail! a sail!" A
man-of-war brig and an armed cutter appeared. Their boats quickly
approached, but the sea still broke so violently over the wreck that
they were unable to get alongside. The famishing survivors, therefore,
constructed some rafts, to be towed off by the boats, but many of those
who ventured on them were swept away by the surf. About a hundred and
fifty were, however, conveyed on board the brig that evening, leaving
still nearly four hundred human beings on the wreck to endure a sixth
night of horrors. The sufferings of many were more than human endurance
could sustain, and next morning, when the men-of-war's boats returned,
half of the hapless beings were found dead. We, meantime, when our
services could be of no further avail, found ourselves, being in an
enemy's country, marched off as prisoners; but I am bound to say that we
were treated with the greatest kindness by the French. The spot where
the wreck occ