ardy crew, with their helpless passengers of every
age and station in life, are left wretchedly to perish from the want of
that succour which it has become my object earnestly to solicit for
these destitute victims of the storm.

Another winter has scarcely yet commenced, and our coasts are spread
over with the shattered fragments of more than two hundred vessels,
which, in one fatal tempest, have been stranded on the British shores,
attended with an appalling havoc of human life, beyond all present means
to ascertain its extent, besides the loss of property to an enormous
amount. And shall these fearful warnings also be without avail? Shall we
still close our eyes on conviction, until further catastrophes wring
from us those reluctant efforts, which ought to spring spontaneously
from a benevolent people? With the most ample means for the rescue of
thousands of human beings from a watery grave, shall we still leave them
to their fate? Shall we hear unmoved of this widely-spread destruction,
and not each contribute to those exertions, to which the common
charities of human nature, and the certainty of the direful evils we
might avert, and the sufferings we might assuage, ought to incite us to
lend our utmost aid?

The conflicting fury of the elements, the darkness of night, the
disasters of the sea, and the dangers of the adjacent shores, but too
frequently combine to place the unhappy mariner beyond the power of
human relief. But if all cannot be rescued, must all therefore be left
to perish? If every effort cannot be attended with success, must not any
attempt be made to mitigate these terrible calamities, which bring home
the evil to our very doors, and force conviction on us by their
desolating effects, and by the destruction of hundreds of our
countrymen, whose wretched remains perpetually strew our shores?--Whilst
we pause, they continue to perish; whilst we procrastinate, the work of
destruction pursues its course; and each delay of another winter, in the
adoption of measures more commensurate with the extent of these
deplorable events, is attended with the sacrifice--perhaps of a thousand
human lives.

Even were the preservation of the vessels and their cargoes alone the
objects of our care, the present want of all system for such a purpose
is, in its consequences, as lavish of property as it is of life; and
from the vast amount now annually lost on our shores, infinitely more
might unquestionably be preserved