tremendous sea
struck the Defence with such inconceivable force that it lifted the
spare anchor out of its berth, threw it upon end, and in its fall it
killed about thirty men! The fury of the waves had swept all before
them; two of the men were saved in a little Norway yawl belonging to
the Author, which his lamented friend Captain Guion had offered to
take home for him, and which was the only boat that reached the shore;
some were saved on the poop of the St. George when torn from her about
five o'clock.

Captain Atkins and Mr. Royston, Secretary to the Admiral, were both
picked up by the Danes ere life was quite extinct, but all the
kindness and humane endeavours of that hospitable people failed in
keeping up animation. It was affirmed by the survivors of the Defence,
that on the Cressy wearing, the master went to Captain Atkins, and
reported that the St. George must inevitably be wrecked, and that
destruction would also attend the Defence if she did not follow the
Cressy! To this Captain Atkins said, "Has the Defence's signal been
made to part company?" and being answered in the negative, he replied,
"Then I will not leave him." Such heroic sentiments, however worthy of
the gallant Captain, cannot be justified when it was impossible to
render assistance, and the sacrifice not only of his own men, but the
valuable lives of seven hundred others, must have been the well-known
consequence.

Captain Pater's conduct became the subject of a court-martial, by
which he was honourably acquitted. Could he by staying longer with his
Admiral have rendered him any relief he never would have quitted him,
nor did he do so until it became his bounden duty to preserve his own
ship and the gallant crew he commanded.

From the testimony of the survivors of the St. George, who arrived on
board the Victory in April 1812, we learnt that the St. George lost
all her jury-masts and rudder before midnight, that she was many hours
in nine fathoms water, and that the anchors were not let go until she
struck the ground. We do not mean to argue on the probability, if she
had anchored, that she would have brought up or rode out the gale, but
after masts and rudder were gone, surely there was a chance. We
mention it to call the attention of those who may be at some future
period in a similar situation, and as a circumstance which appears by
the following extract of a letter to have struck Sir James, who had
often successfully depended on his an