ing back from
down Channel under lower fore top-sails, all ready to let go their
anchors.

Sometimes in stress of weather a ship bringing up will lose her anchors
by not shortening sail sufficiently before she lets them go. She
preserves too much 'way' through the water, and she snaps the great
chain cable by the force of her momentum as if it had been a
pack-thread.

The wind reached the force of a 'great gale,'--the entry I find in my
diary of that date. The boatmen say to the present day that it was
blowing a 'harricane,' and, according to the report of the coxswain of
the lifeboat, 'it was blowing a very heavy gale of wind.' There was,
therefore, no mere capful of wind, but a real, whole, tremendous gale.
Old salts are always ready to pity landsmen, and to overwhelm them with
'Bless you's!' when they venture to talk of a 'storm'; but the harsh,
steady roar of the wind on this day made it plainly and beyond doubt a
storm.

Long lines of heavy dangerous rollers broke on Deal beach, and only the
first-class luggers could launch or live in the Downs, so great was the
sea. These splendid luggers being of five feet draught, and having
therefore a deeper hold of the water, could do better than a lifeboat
in the deep water of the Downs. They could fight to windward better,
and would not be so liable to upset under sail as a lifeboat; but this
only applies to the deep water.

Put the best Deal lugger that ever floated alongside the present Deal
lifeboat, the Mary Somerville, in a furious sea of breakers on the
Goodwin Sands, and the whole state of affairs is altered. The lugger
would be swamped and overwhelmed in five minutes, while the lifeboat
would empty herself and live through it successfully.

The fortunes of the vessels in the Downs on that day were varied. Some
were manfully riding out the gale; others were holding on to their one
remaining anchor, signalling for help, and as sorely in need of fresh
anchors and chains as ever was King Richard of a horse. Some had lost
both anchors and were drifting out to destruction; destruction meaning
the Goodwin Sands, on which a fearful surf was raging about two miles
under their lee.

One of those driving vessels was the Ganges. She had run back from the
Channel to the Downs for shelter, and dropped her anchors running
before a strong tide and a heavy gale; having thus too much 'way' on
her, both the long chain cables parted, snapping close to the anchors,
and