p,
we were enabled to make a good offing. Fortunately no accident of
consequence occurred, although several of our people were severely
bruised by falls. Poor fellows! they certainly suffered enough; not a
dry stitch, not a dry hammock have they had since we sailed. Happily,
however, their misfortunes are soon forgot in a dry shirt and a can of
grog.

The most melancholy part of the narrative is still to be told. On coming
up to our anchorage, we observed an unusual degree of curiosity and
bustle in the fort; crowds of people were congregated on both sides,
running to and fro, examining us through spy-glasses; in short, an
extraordinary commotion was apparent. The meaning of all this was but
too soon made known to us by a boat coming alongside, from which we
learned that the unfortunate Saldanha had gone to pieces, and every man
perished! Our own destruction had likewise been reckoned inevitable from
the time of the discovery of the unhappy fate of our consort, five days
beforehand; and hence the astonishment at our unexpected return. From
all that could be learned concerning the dreadful catastrophe, I am
inclined to believe that the Saldanha had been driven on the rocks about
the time our doom appeared so certain in another quarter. Her lights
were seen by the signal-tower at nine o'clock of that fearful Wednesday
night, December 4th, after which it is supposed she went ashore on the
rocks at a small bay called Ballymastaker, almost at the entrance of
Lochswilly harbor.

Next morning the beach was strewed with fragments of the wreck, and
upwards of two hundred of the bodies of the unfortunate sufferers were
washed ashore. One man--and one only--out of the three hundred, was
ascertained to have come ashore alive, but almost in a state of
insensibility. Unhappily there was no person present to administer to
his wants judiciously, and upon craving something to drink, about half a
pint of whisky was given him by the people, which almost instantly
killed him! Poor Pakenham's body was recognised amidst the others, and
like these, stripped quite naked by the inhuman wretches, who flocked to
the wreck as to a blessing! It is even suspected that he came on shore
alive, but was stripped and left to perish. Nothing could equal the
audacity of the plunderers, although a party of the Lanark militia was
doing duty around the wreck. But this is an ungracious and revolting
subject, which no one of proper feeling would wish to dwell