eck, and were obliged to run for the Barbican. A
small boat belonging to a merchant vessel was more fortunate. Mr.
Edsell, signal midshipman to the port admiral, and Mr. Coghlan, mate of
the vessel, succeeded, at the risk of their lives, in bringing her
alongside. The ends of two additional hawsers were got on shore, and Sir
Edward contrived cradles to be slung upon them, with travelling ropes to
pass forward and backward between the ship and the beach. Each hawser
was held on shore by a number of men, who watched the rolling of the
wreck, and kept the ropes tight and steady. Meantime, a cutter had with
great difficulty worked out of Plymouth pool, and two large boats
arrived from the dockyard, under the directions of Mr. Hemmings, the
master-attendant, by whose caution and judgment they were enabled to
approach the wreck, and receive the more helpless of the passengers, who
were carried to the cutter. Sir Edward, with his sword drawn, directed
the proceedings, and preserved order--a task the more difficult, as the
soldiers had got at the spirits before he came on board, and many were
drunk. The children, the women, and the sick, were the first landed. One
of them was only three weeks old; and nothing in the whole transaction
impressed Sir Edward more strongly than the struggle of the mother's
feelings before she would entrust her infant to his care, or afforded
him more pleasure than the success of his attempt to save it. Next the
soldiers were got on shore; then the ship's company; and finally. Sir
Edward himself, who was one of the last to leave her. Every one was
saved, and presently after the wreck went to pieces.

Nothing could equal the lustre of such an action, except the modesty of
him who was the hero of it. Indeed, upon all occasions, forward as he
was to eulogize the merits of his followers, Sir Edward was reserved
almost to a fault upon everything connected with his own services. The
only notice taken of the _Dutton_, in the journal of the
_Indefatigable_, is the short sentence:--"Sent two boats to the
assistance of a ship on shore in the Sound;" and in his letter to
Vice-Admiral Onslow, who had hoisted his flag at Plymouth a day or two
before, he throws himself almost out of sight, and ascribes the chief
merit to the officer who directed the boats:--

"DEAR SIR,--I hope it happened to me this afternoon to be
serviceable to the unhappy sufferers on board the _Dutton;_ and I
have much satis