on shore. When the wave receded, I found
myself near the boat; the man was now nearer to the shore than
myself. I believe a man or two were making towards him; another
wave came which overwhelmed me, and flung me on the shore, to
which I was now making with all my strength. I got on my legs
for one moment, when the advanced guard, if I may call it so,
of another wave, struck me on the back, and laid me upon my
face, but I was now quite out of danger. A man now came and
lifted me up, as others lifted up the other man, who seemed
quite unable to exert himself. The above is a plain statement
of facts. I was the only person, with the exception of the man
in distress, who was in the deep water, or who confronted the
billows, which were indeed monstrous, but which I cared little
for, being, as I said before, an expert diver. Had I been alone
the result of the affair would have been much the same; as it
is, after the last wave I could easily have dragged the man up
upon the beach. I am willing to give to the beachmen whatever
credit is due to them; I am anxious to believe that one of them
was once up to his middle in water, but truth compels me to
state that I never saw one of them up to his knees. I received
very uncivil language from one of them, but every species of
respect and sympathy from the genteel part of the spectators. A
gentleman, I believe from Norwich, and a policeman, attended me
in a cab to my lodgings, where they undressed and dressed me.
The kindness of these two individuals I shall never forget.

In any case this adventure had exceptional publicity. For example Mr.
Robert Cooke of John Murray's firm wrote to Mrs. Borrow on 13th October
1853 to say that while travelling abroad he had read in _Galignani's
Messenger_ an account of his friend Lavengro's 'daring and heroic act in
rescuing so many from a watery grave.' 'I wish they had all been
critics,' he adds; 'he would have done just the same, and they might
perhaps have shown their gratitude when they got among his inky waves of
literature.'

More than this, the paragraph in the Bury St. Edmunds newspaper was
copied into the _Plymouth Mail_, and was there read by the Borrows of
Cornwall, who had heard nothing of their relative, Thomas Borrow, the
army captain and his family, for fifty years or more. One of Borrow's
cousins by marriage, Rob