PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONSON THEFREQUENCYOFSHIPWRECKS,PARTICULARLY NEAR SHORE.ILLUSTRATED BY SOME LATE MELANCHOLY EVENTS.
Of all the heavy afflictions incident to a seafaring-life, shipwreck is the most disastrous. For what can afford a more affecting spectacle than those poor way-worn mariners, who, on their joyful return from a long voyage to the bosom of their families, are unhappily cast away at the very mouth of the harbour! To behold them, in this perilous situation, conflicting with the merciless waves; clinging to the broken planks, or with uplifted hands and piercing shrieks imploring aid with all the eloquence of ineffablewoe! among the crowd of spectators on the beach, see the aged parent, the tender wife, and the helpless children of the distressed sufferers, bathed in tears, and, in the anguish of their souls, pouring forth their unavailing cries and supplications! at length exhausted with ineffectual strugglings, the devoted victims in the agony of despair, are forced to yield to the all-conquering element, and, while casting their last look on the shore, are suddenly overwhelmed in one common undistinguished grave!
Now, this is no feigned picture of imaginary distress, but the genuine recital of a mournful event, which, alas! is too often realised on the British coasts!
An affecting instance of this nature happened not long ago, in open day, and in the face of at least a hundred spectators, to two vessels belonging to Cardigan Bay, which, during a storm, were unfortunately wrecked near the coast. One of them, being in adecayedstate, sunk within fifty yards of shore, where the crew, being instantly cast on a sand bank, miraculously escaped. But the miserable sufferers in the other vessel, eleven in number, being unable to keep their hold, whilst immense billows broke over them, were washed off one by one, until only one man was left, who tenaciously kept his seat for two hours after his unfortunate companions, when aprodigious wave dashed the wreck to the shore, where it unhappily struck against a rock which forced him back into the foaming surge, and he was seen no more!