But this scene was not to last long:  for the tide had been imperceptibly making way and closing.  I had always observed that after coming to a certain place, its velocity was greatly accelerated, and it was with feelings of alarm that I saw the danger which the almost unconscious people incurred.  From regard to our own safety we had to retreat rapidly towards the shingles, carrying as many of the helpless as time would admit out of danger, in which we were aided by many of the sailors from Torwich, who had assisted in rescuing a portion of the cargo.  The peasantry, at last aware of the hazard they ran, took to their heels also; but from the state they were in, many were forgotten or left behind.  The roar of waters came rapidly onward, and amid the foaming eddy created by its advance, the stifled death-cry, mingled with the harsh and piercing shrieks of some of the half drowning victims—­one moment awakened to the consciousness of their situation, and the next hurried to eternity—­burst on the ear; and such was the advance of the spring-flood, that a few minutes after the rush of people had reached the shingles, the curling breakers rolled the bodies of several of the sufferers almost to their feet.  The most lively interest was now excited towards a small rock, which jutted out of the sand a little distance from the wreck.  The two poor children of a fisherman’s widow in the village, were playing in a cavity of this rock, when the tide surrounded them.  Their voices were drowned by the roaring of the waters, and their fate would have been unknown, had not the wild appearance and frantic screams of the mother—­come in search of her children—­attracted notice.  When they were discovered, only a ledge of the rock was discernible; and the little sufferers were seen imploring for help amidst the spray with which the waves, fanned by a stiff breeze from windward, covered them.  Several brave fellows swam off towards the rock, but before they could reach it, a sudden rush of tide swept over, and engulfed the children amidst the fragments of wreck hurled forward in its advance.  One of the sailors seized the youngest of the children and bore him safely to shore.  The body of the other was found when the tide ebbed, under a ledge of rocks on the eastern side.  Upwards of fifteen persons were amongst the missing.  It was an impressive scene, and read a powerful lesson to all.

“Wrecking” has long been deservedly a national reproach.  It is, however, rarely accompanied with the cruelty and violence by which it was formerly characterized; and such aggravated scenes now seldom occur.  The people of our coasts have become, generally, much more civilized, and probably the “march of improvement” will ultimately eradicate so inhuman a custom.  In Cornwall it was carried to such an excess that the example was even given from the pulpit; and there is a story related of a Cornish parson, who upon information being brought to his congregation of a wreck whilst they were at