The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1850-03-05 00:00:00

A SHIPWRECK

From Fraser's Magazine.)

One morning, I can remember now well, how we
watched from the Hartland Cliffs a great barque that
came drifting and rolling in befon the western aale, while
we followed her up the coast, parsons and sportsmen, far-
mers and preventive men, with the Manby's mortar lum-

bering b
ways, fr

h stone-gaps and track-
The maddening ex-

hind us in a cart, throe
lm headland to headland

.-an wildly towards the
ed off again inexplicably—
,ilecr, were gone short off
of sail fluttered from her
with all straining of eyes and
-en no sign man on board. Well
led disappointment and admiration of
men, as a fresh set of salvors appeared in
1. of a boat's crew of Clovelly fishermen ;
,ssly the little black speck crawl-
ing and struggling up in the teeth of the gale, under the
Shelter of the land, till, when the ship had rounded a
pint into smooth water, she seized on her like some tiny
spider on a huge unwieldy fly ; and then how one still
smaller black speck shewed aloft on the main-yard, and
---and then the desperate 'fforts to get the topsail
`.,ar out o 4 eir hands again, and
fan( Iwe could hear the

of expectation as she
id then shee
owsprit, I rec

watched breathl

aw it tear out of tl

under of its flairings above the roar of the gale, and the
mountains of surf which made the rocks ring beneath our
feet—and how we stood, silent, shuddering, expecting
every moment to see whirled into the sea from the plung-
ing yards, one of the same tiny black specks, in each one
of which was a living human soul, with wild women pray-
ing for it at home ! And then how they tried to get her
head round to the wind, and disappeared instantly in a
cloud of white spray—and let her head fall back again—
and jammed it round again, and disappeared again—and
at last let her drive helplessly up the bay, while we kept

pace with her alone the cliffs ; and how at last, when she
bad been mastered and fairly taken in tow, and was
within two miles of the pier, and all hearts were merry
with the hopes of a prize which would make them rich,

perhaps, for years to come—one-third, I suppose, of the
whole va!ue of her cargo—how she broke loose from them
at the last moment, and rushed frantically in upon those
huge rock 3 below us, leaping great banks of slate at the
blow of each-breaker, tearing off masses of iron-stone
which lie there to this day to tell the tale, till she drove
up high and dry against the cliff, and lay, the huge brute,
like an enormous stranded whale, grinding and crashing
itself to pieces against the walls of its adamantine cage.
And well I recollect the sad records of the log-book that
was left on board the deserted ship ; how she had been
water-logged for weeks and weeks, buoyed up by her tim-
bercargo, the crew clinging in the tops, and crawling down,
when they dared, for putrid biscuit dust and drops of wa-
ter, till the water was washed overboard and gone; and
then notice after notice, "On this day such an one died,"
"On this clay such an one was washed away." The log
kept up to the last, even when there was only that to tell,
by the stern, business-like merchant skipper, whoever he
was ; and how at last, when there was neither food nor
water, the strong man's heart seems to have quailed, or,
perhaps, risen; into a prayer, jotted down in the log,
" The Lord have mercy on us!"—and then a blank of
ges, and, scribbled with a famine-shaken hand,
her thy Creator in the days of thy youth:"
log and. the ship were left to the rats, which
covered her deck when our men boarded her. And well I
remember the last act of that tragedy ; for a ship has really,
as sailors feel, a personality, almost a life and soul of her
own ; and as long as her timbers hold together, all is not
over. You can hardly call her a corpse, though the hu-
who inhabited her, and were her soul, may
• and so I felt that night,

several pl
" Remem
and so t

man being
Lave fled into the far eternities

as I came down along the very woodland road on which we
are now walking, with the north-west wind hurling dead
branches and showers of crisp oak-leaves about my head ;
and suddenly, as I staggered out of the wood here, I came
'won such a piece of chiaro-scuro as would have baffled
Correggio, or Rembrandt himself. Under that very wall
was a long tent of sails and spars, filled with preventive
men, fishermen, Lloyd's underwriters, lying about in
every variety of strange attitud and costume; while can-
dles, stuck in bayonet-handles in the wall, poured in a
wild glare over the shaggy faces and glittering weapons,
and piles of timber, and rusty iron cables which glowed
red-hot in the light, and then streamed up the glen to-
wards me through the salt misty air in long fans of light,
sending fiery bars over the brown transparent oak foliage
and the sad beds of withered autumn flowers, and glorify-
ing the wild flakes of foam, as they rushed across the light
stream, into troops of tiny silver angels, that vanished
into the night and hid themselves among the woods from
the fierce spirit of the storm. And then, just where the
glare of the lights and watch-fires was most brilliant,
there too the black shadows of the cliff had placed the
point of intensest darkness, lightening gradually upwards
right and left, between the two great jaws of the glen, into
a chaos of grey mist, where the eye could discern no form
of sea or cloud, but a perpetual shifting or quivering as if
the whole atmosphere was writhing with agony in the
clutches of the wind.
' The ship was breaking up," and they sat by her like
physicians by a death-bed side, to watch the last
and " the effects of the deceased." I recollect
down to the beach, hold-

hopeless
struggle

our literally warping ourse

and posts. There was a saddened, awe-
tence, even upon the gentleman from Lloyd's with
behind his ear. A sudden turn of the clouds let in a
cam of moonshine upon the white leaping heads of
„ant breakers, and on that tall pyramid of the Black-
-arch Rock, which now stands in such calm grandeur
gazing down on the smiling summer bay, with the white
sand of Braunton and the red cliffs of Portledge shining
through its two vast arches ; and there, against that slab
of rock on your right, still disooloured with her paint, lay
surge, to drop again with
fell back from the cliff, and

ing on by rocl
struck
the per
wild ul

!hip, rising slowly on every

as the wa

ing-wall of foam

dragged the roaring pebbles back with it under the corn-
You have heard of ships at the last
moment crying aloud like living things in agony ? I
beard it then, as the stumps of her masts rocked and
reeled in her, and every plank and joint strained and
screamed with the dreadful tension.

shrieking on the rack,
at those strange semi-human cries, and
away—and I tried to turn, and yet my

A. horrible image,—

rose up before n

t be put

i on the hllek mass, which seemed vainly
e the help of man against the stern ministers of

eyes were rivet
to imp

the Omnipotent

Still she

turned at 1
fore it, ruE
time to sa'

seemed to linger in the death-struggle, and I
st away ; when, to ! a wave, huger than all be-
led up the boulders towards us. We had just

ourselves. A dull, thunderous groan, as if a
mountain had collapsed, rose shave the roar of the tem-
pest; and we all turned with an instinctive knowledge of
what had happened, just in time to see the huge mass
melt away into the boiling white, and vanish for ever-
more. And then the very raving of the wind seemed
hushed with awe ; the very breakers plunged more si-
lently towards the shore, with something of a sullen com-
punction ; and as we stood and strained our eyes into the
gloom, one black plank after another crawled up out of
the darkness upon the head of the coming surge, and
threw itself at our feet like the corpse of a drowning man,
too spent to struggle more.

S EARLY STRUGGLES.—When " Joan of
Arc" was in the press, I had as many legitimate causes
for unhappiness as any man need have—uncertainty for
the future and immediate want, in the literal and plain
meaning of the word. I often walked the streets at din-
ner time for want of a dinner, when I had not eighteen-
pence for the ordinary, nor bread and cheese at my
lodgings. But do not suppose that T thought of dinner
when I was walking. My head was full of what I was
composing; when I lay down at night I was planning my
poem ; and when I rose up in the morning, the poem was
the first thought to which I was awake. The scanty
pro's of that poem I was then anticinating in my
lo:1,!,,,-",!tse bills for tea, bread, and butter, and those
little&..'s which amount to a formidable sun, when a
man has no resources.—/Fouthey's Life and Correspon-

A Pot

AN. IMPORTANT CAPTURE.—Bhye Maharaj Singh, the
Gooroo, is at length in safe custody in the Jullundur gaol.
We have several,communications respecting his capture,
and from them we gather that it is entirely owing to the
exertions of Mr. H. Vansittart and a small party of the
14th, or Skinner's Irregulars. It would appear that on
the afternoon of the 28th December, information was
brought into Jullundur that the Gooroo was known to be
at a place near Adampore, midway between Hoshearpore
and Jullundur, with some followers, and that there was
every chance of capturing him if no time were lost; the

intimation being also given that foureeen koss at least
must be done in an hour and a-half. Mr. Vansittart lost
no time in getting together some 20 of Skinner's :Horse,
and set off immediately in the direction which the guide
pointed out, and on arriving at a thick enclosure of trees
they were warned that they had arrived at the spot of their
search by the sudden appearance of some six or seven
men, who immediately took to their heels ; they were,
however, pursued by a portion of the party (only ten, we
are told, arrived with Mr. Vansittart), the others kept
guard over the enclosure. The Rissalder of Skinner's
Horse was the first to enter the enclosure, and, the others
following, the Gooroo, with twenty followers, was cap-
tured ; they were generally unarmed, or there would, no
doubt, have been a contested Struggle ; as it was, we hear
that one man struck at Mr. Vansittart with a small axe,
but a' pistol-ball from that gentleman disabled the Sikh
from during further mischief. This is certainly very
creditable to Mr. Vansittart, and the behaviour of the
Irregulars is beyond all praise; they will no doubt reap
the reward promised fr— •'
believe 10,000 rupees

r the capture of the Gooroo—wl
It is well known in certain circle:

that the influence of this man is unbounded amongst the
Sikh chieftains and the whole population of the Punjaub ;
and there i 3 little doubt but that he has generally been
the prime mover in all the conspiracies and revolts which
have lately caused us so much expense, and led to so much
bloodshed, whilst he is revered by .all parties and ranks
for his supposed power of working miracles. and is, in
fact, the one holy man and profit:of the Punjaub.— Delhi
Gazette.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENTS.—It has the appearance of
compassion and charity to think that men ought not to
be put to death for their crimes, but to be kept alive, that
they may repent of them. Some, both ancient and mo-
dem!, have thought that there was a cruelty in all capital
punishments that was inconsistent with the gentleness of
the Gospel i .but when we consider that God, in that law
which He nunself delivered to the Jews by the hand of
Moses, did appoint so many capital punishments, even for
offences against positive precepts, we cannot think that
these are contrary to justice or true goodness, since they
were dictated by God himself, who is eternally the same,
unalterable in his perfections. This shows that God, who
knows most perfectly our frame and disposition, knows
that the love of life is planted so deep in our natures, and
that it bath such a root there, that nothing can werk so
powerfully on us, to govern and restrain us as the fear of
death. And, therefore, since the main thing that is to
cQuiddered in goverment a the good of the whole