human life, they successively suffered themselves to be torn from the tender embrace, and with the fortitude which never fails to characterise and adorn their sex on occasions of overwhelming trial, were placed, without a murmur, in the boat, which was immediately lowered into a sea so tempestuous, as to leave us only "to hope) against hope" that it should live in it for a single moment. Twice the cry was heard from those on the chains that the boat was swamping. But He who enabled the Apostle Peter to walk on the face of the deep, and was graciously attending to the silent but earnest aspirations of those on board, had decreed its safety.

Although Captain Cobb had used every precaution to diminish the danger of the boat's descent, and for this purpose stationed a man with an axe to cut away the tackle from either extremity, should the slightest difficulty occur in unhooking it; yet the peril attending the whole operation, which can only be adequately estimated by nautical men, had very nearly proved fatal to its numerous inmates.

After one or two unsuccessful attempts to place the little frail bark fairly upon the surface of the water, the command was at length given to unhook; the tackle at the stern was, in consequence, immediately cleared; but the'

ropes at the bow having got foul, the sailor there found it impossible to obey the order. In vain was the axe applied to the entangled tackle, the moment was inconceivably critical, as the boat, which necessarily followed the motion of the ship, was gradually rising out of the water, and must, in another instant, have been hanging perpendicularly by the bow, and its helpless passengers launched into the deep, had not a most providential wave suddenly struck and lifted up the stern, so as to enable the seamen to disengage the tackle; and the boat, being dexterously cleared from the ship, was seen, after a little while, from the poop, battling with the billows;-now raised, in its progress to the brig, like a speck on their summit, and then disappearing for several seconds, as if engulfed "in the horrid vale" between them. The Cambria having prudently lain to at some distance from the Kent, lest she should be involved in her explosion, or exposed to the fire from our guns, which, being all

I was afterwards informed by one of the passengers on board the Cambria,-for from the great height of the Indiaman, we had not the opportunity of making a similar observation, — that when both vessels happened to be at the same time in the trough of the sea, the Kent was entirely concealed by the inter. vening waves from the deck of the Cambria,

shotted, afterwards went off as the flames successively reached them, the men had a considerable way to row; and the success of this first experiment seeming to be the measure of our future hopes, the movements of this precious boat-incalculably precious, without doubt, to the agonized husbands and fathers immediately connected with it,-were watched with intense anxiety by all on board. The better to balance the boat in the raging sea through which it had to pass, and to enable the seamen to ply their oars, the women and children were stowed promiscuously under the seats; and consequently exposed to the risk of being drowned by the continual dashing of the spray over their heads, which so filled the boat during the passage, that before their arrival at the brig, the poor females were sitting up to the breast in water, and their children kept with the greatest difficulty above it.

However, in the course of twenty minutes, or half an hour, the little cutter was soon alongside the "ark of refuge;" and the first human being that happened to be re-admitted, out of the vast assemblage that ultimately found shelter there, was the infant son of Major Macgregor, a child of only a few weeks, who was caught from his mother's arms and lifted

into the brig by Mr. Thomson, the fourth mate of the Kent, the officer who had been ordered to take charge of the ladies' boat.

But the extreme difficulty and danger presented to the women and children in getting into the Cambria seemed scarcely less imminent than that which they had previously encountered; for, to prevent the boat from swamping or being stove against the side of the brig, while its passengers were disembarking from it, required no ordinary exercise of skill and perseverance on the part of the sailors, nor of self-possession and effort on that of the females themselves. On coming alongside the Cambria, Captain Cook very judiciously called out first for the children, who were successively thrown or handed up from the boat. The women were then urged to avail themselves of every favourable heave of the sea by springing towards the many friendly arms that were extended from the vessel to receive them; and, notwithstanding the deplorable conse-> quence of making a false step under such critical circumstances, not a single accident occurred to any individual belonging to this first boat. Indeed, the only one whose life appears to have been placed in extreme jeopardy alongside, was one of the ladies, who, in attempting

to spring from the boat, came short of the hand that was held out to her, and would certainly have perished, had she not most happily caught hold at the instant of a rope that happened to be hanging over the Cambria's side, to which she clung for some moments, until she was dragged into the vessel.

I have reason to know, that the feelings of oppression, delight, gratitude and praise experienced by the married officers and soldiers, on being assured of the comparative safety of their wives and children, so entirely abstracted their minds from their own situation, as to render them for a little while afterwards totally insensible either to the storm that beat upon them, or to the active and gathering volcano that threatened every instant to explode under their feet.

It being impossible for the boats, after the first trip, to come alongside the Kent, a plan was adopted for lowering the women and children by ropes from the stern, by tying them two and two together. But from the heaving of the ship, and the extreme difficulty in dropping them at the instant the boat was underneath, many of the poor creatures were unavoidably plunged repeatedly under water; and much as humanity may rejoice that no woman

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