The day was far spent, when towards the close of the month of October, 18—­, I wandered out to the shore to watch the flow of the evening’s tide.  The weather had been unsettled for some time previous, and the rain had fallen in torrents, with a moderate breeze, during most part of the day.  Towards evening the rain ceased, though large heavy masses of black clouds were flying about, and backing up to seaward, accompanied with a short gusty gale of wind.  I never recollect a more dismal night.  A thick haze overspread the lower parts of the landscape, throwing the bloated masses of clouds higher up in the horizon, into a sort of sombre relief.  As I passed a little look-out house on my way to the beach, I sauntered to a group of sailors at their usual council, who were gazing with deep interest at a solitary vessel dimly discernible through the fog in the offing.  As she neared us we found her to be a barque of apparently considerable burthen, making a tack to weather the Torhead, which lay several miles under her lee, with a strong breeze from windward.  She was evidently quite out of her reckoning from the indecision and embarassment displayed in her movements; and the captain seemed not sufficiently aware of the hazard he ran.  I waited sometime at this place watching the movements of the ship.  The tide came roaring in with a broken swell increased by a high spring flood; and there was that in the “wind’s eye” which betokened approaching disaster; while the gloom was increasing, and the harsh cries and hurried flight of the sea-birds indicated tempestuous weather.

“An ugly looking night this, Mr. ——­ as I have seen for many a-day,” remarked Harry Covering, one of the oldest of the group of sailors, and a crony of mine.  “Sink the Customs! if yon ship weathers Torhead this night, may I never pull an oar again.”  “It is, indeed, a fearful-looking night, messmate, and no time ought to be lost in the present state of the tide in putting off to her—­for if the wind holds in this part, it is great odds indeed, that she does not go upon the Needles.”

The breeze was freshening every moment; indeed the situation of the strange ship must soon become imminently dangerous.  The crew seemed at last to have awakened from their lethargy, and were apparently making every effort to enable her to gain an offing and weather Torhead, before the combined force of wind and flood should render that impracticable.  It was a moment of deep interest.  I am not acquainted with any event, notwithstanding the frequency of its recurrence, that appeals more directly to our sympathies, than a shipwreck.  The mighty power of the ocean is thus brought before us in its most striking sense, and the general scene of disaster it occasions is almost always varied with instances of individual sympathy for some of the wrecked.  We were now joined by the resident officer of the coast-blockade, and a party of men were dispatched to pull off to the ship in distress, while the rest of us hurried