d not be
found, now appeared on deck, and declared, to the astonishment of both
the Admiral and Captain Paddon, that they were off the north shore.
Paddon, in his perplexity, had ordered an anchor to be let go; Walker
directed the cable to be cut, and, making all sail, succeeded in beating
to windward and gaining an offing.[166]

The ship that carried Colonel King, of the artillery, had a narrow
escape. King says that she anchored in a driving rain, "with a shoal of
rocks on each quarter within a cable's length of us, which we plainly
perceived by the waves breaking over them in a very violent manner."
They were saved by a lull in the gale; for if it had continued with the
same violence, he pursues, "our anchors could not have held, and the
wind and the vast seas which ran, would have broke our ship into ten
thousand pieces against the rocks. All night we heard nothing but ships
firing and showing lights, as in the utmost distress."[167]

Vetch, who was on board the little frigate "Despatch," says that he was
extremely uneasy at the course taken by Walker on the night of the
storm. "I told Colonel Dudley and Captain Perkins, commander of the
'Despatch,' that I wondered what the Flag meant by that course, and why
he did not steer west and west-by-south."[168] The "Despatch" kept well
astern, and so escaped the danger. Vetch heard through the fog guns
firing signals of distress; but three days passed before he knew how
serious the disaster was. The ships of war had all escaped; but eight
British transports, one store-ship, and one sutler's sloop were dashed
to pieces.[169] "It was lamentable to hear the shrieks of the sinking,
drowning, departing souls," writes the New England commissary, Sheaf,
who was very near sharing their fate.

The disaster took place at and near a rocky island, with adjacent reefs,
lying off the north shore and called Isle aux Oeufs. On the second day
after it happened, Walker was told by the master of one of the wrecked
transports that eight hundred and eighty-four soldiers had been lost,
and he gives this hasty estimate in his published Journal; though he
says in his Introduction to it that the total loss of officers,
soldiers, and sailors was scarcely nine hundred.[170] According to a
later and more trustworthy statement, the loss of the troops was
twenty-nine officers, six hundred and seventy-six sergeants, corporals,
drummers, and private soldiers, and thirty-five women attached to the
regi