l, the
_Cambria_, and this was her first voyage, starting from Deptford before
the _Kent_ sailed from Gravesend.

Captain Cook many years afterwards commanded in the disastrous "Niger
Expedition." He was a splendid sailor, and a humble Christian, whose
death-bed, long years after, was attended by the youngest passenger he
had helped to save from the burning _Kent_.]

[Footnote 5: I was afterwards informed by one of the passengers on board
the _Cambria_--for from the great height of the Indiaman we had not the
opportunity of making a similar observation--that when both vessels
happened to be at the same time in the trough of the sea, the _Kent_ was
entirely concealed by the intervening waves from the deck of the
_Cambria_.]

[Footnote 6: "The _Rob Roy_ Canoe on the Jordan" (Murray) gives some
other experiences of watery dangers in after life.]

[Footnote 7: This narrative has been translated into the French,
Spanish, Swedish, Italian, German, and Russian languages, and the author
(born March 16, 1787) still enjoys good health (1880) while writing the
preface to this edition, of which a _facsimile_ is given at the
beginning of the book.]

[Footnote 8: Some of those men who were necessarily left behind, having
previously conducted themselves with great propriety and courage, I
think it but justice to express my belief that the same difficulties
which had nearly proved fatal to Captain Cobb's personal escape were
probably found to be insurmountable by landsmen, whose coolness,
unaccompanied with dexterity and experience, might not be available to
them in their awful situation.]

[Footnote 9: I ought to state that the exertions of Mr. Muir, third
mate, were also most conspicuous during the whole day.]

[Footnote 10: See page 83.--One of the men saved after the
explosion (which had burned off both his feet) was met thirty years
afterwards by the individual who was first saved in the _Cambria_. This
man was wheeling himself in a go-cart on the race-ground at Lanark,
dressed in sailor's costume, and selling papers with a picture of the
_Kent_ upon them and some doggerel verses below. As honorary secretary
of the "Open-Air Mission" (which provides preachers for streets in
towns, and for races and fairs in the country), the "first saved" from
the wreck and burning then preached the Gospel to the "last saved" from
the scorched embers, and to a large and motley crowd, all of whom will
assuredly meet once more "at that day.