From the time the ship first struck, the current had been carrying her along the cliffs at the rate of at least a quarter of a mile an hour; it now carried her off the rock, and she drifted along shore, a helpless wreck, at the mercy of the winds and waves. The captain saw that nothing more could be done for the vessel, and therefore he directed all his energies to the preservation of the crew. The marine who had been appointed to guard the spirit-room still remained at his post, and never left it till commanded to do so by his superior officer, even after the water had burst open the hatch. We mention this as an instance of the effect of good discipline in times of the greatest peril.
The vessel, or rather the wreck, was now carried towards a small cove, into which she happily drifted; she struck heavily against the rocks, then gave some tremendous yauls, and gradually sunk until nothing was left above water but the bows, the broken bowsprit, and the wreck of the masts as they laid on the booms.
All on board deemed that the crisis of their fate had arrived,--and they prepared for the final struggle between life and death. There were some moments of awful suspense, for every lurch the ill-fated vessel gave, was expected to be the last; but when she seemed to sink no deeper, there came the hope that her keel had touched the bottom, and that they should not all he engulfed in a watery grave.
Before she sunk, the frigate's bows had gone so close into the rocks as to enable some sixty or seventy people to jump on shore; and a hawser was got out and fixed to a rock, by which several others were saved; but by a tremendous surge, the piece of rock to which the hawser was fastened was broken away, and for a time all communication with the land was suspended. They tried every means that could be devised to convey a rope from the ship to the land, but for a long time without success, until Mr. Geach, the boatswain, swung himself on the stump of the bowsprit, and by making fast two belaying pins to the end of a line, he succeeded in throwing it on shore. To this a stronger cable was bent, and it was dragged through the surf by the people on the rocks, who then kept it taut.
Although a few words only are required to describe the mode by which a communication was established between the ship and the shore, yet it had been a work of toil, time, and danger. The boatswain had more than once nearly lost his life by being washed away by the waves as they swept over the wreck; the captain, who directed his proceedings, was standing up to his middle in water, upon one foot only, frequently losing his hold, and with great difficulty regaining his position.