hard, misled by some irregularity in the lights on the Bell
Rock and Isle of May.

The crew of the Nymph were all saved, but the fine frigate was lost.

ST. GEORGE AND DEFENCE.

Among the many services in which the fleets of Great Britain were
engaged during the last war, none was more rife with perils and
hardships than that on which the Baltic Fleet was employed. During the
long winter nights the crews were continually exposed to intense cold,
and the ships were often enveloped in such impenetrable fogs, that
sometimes even the pilots were deceived as to their true position, and
those lamentable consequences ensued of which the loss of the Minotaur
was an example, (see page 154), her officers conceiving they were on
the coast of England, when they were actually stranded on the opposite
shore.

We will briefly mention two instances, which may give the reader some
idea of the severity of the climate in the Northern Seas.

On the 23rd of December, 1808, the Fama (which had sailed from
Carlscrona the previous day, in consort with some other men-of-war,
and a convoy of merchantmen,) struck upon the Island of Bornholm, in
the midst of such dense darkness, and so blinding a fall of snow,
that it was impossible to discern any of the surrounding objects. The
moment the ship struck, Lieutenant Topping, her commander, sprung from
his berth and rushed upon deck, without giving himself time to put on
his clothes. In his anxiety for the safety of his ship, and of those
who were on board, he continued to give his orders, without any other
protection from the piercing blast and driving snow than a blanket,
which one of his men had thrown over his shoulders; '_in fifteen
minutes from the time the vessel first struck, he fell upon the deck a
corpse_.' One man and a woman shared the same fate, the rest of the
crew survived the night, and were next morning saved by the Danes.

The circumstances attending the loss of the Pandora were still more
horrible. She struck on the Scaw Reef, a shoal on the coast of
Jutland, on the night of the 13th of February, 1811, and in three
hours her rudder was carried away, and the hold nearly filled with
water. The wind was bitterly cold, and, as the men were unable to get
below, they were in danger of being either washed overboard, or frozen
to death, before morning. In this dreadful state they remained until
daybreak, when it was discovered that several of them had perished
from the inclem