“He said, ‘She’s dead enough; it’s no use to lay hold of her.’

“I answered, ‘She is not dead.’  He caught hold of the woman and hung her head over one of the rattlings of the mizzen shrouds, and there she swung by her chin till a wash came and lifted her off, and then she rolled about again.  Just then one of the captains of the frigates came up in his boat.  I waved my hand toward the woman—­he stopped pulling, the men dragged her into the boat, and laid her in the sternsheets.

“‘My man,’ said the captain, ’I must pick up those who are in more danger than you.’

“‘All right, sir,’ said I; ‘I’m safe moored here.’

“There was one of our men hanging on the mainstay, and roaring like a bull, as he tried to climb by it out of the water.  Had he only remained quiet, he would have done well enough.  The boat took him off first, and the others of the people who were clinging about the masts and rigging, including the baker and myself.  It then pulled on board the ‘Victory’ with us; and I once more found a good dry plank between me and the salt water.”

“Was the captain and admiral saved?”

“Captain Waghorn was.  He could not swim; but one of the seamen held him up.  The admiral was drowned in his cabin.  Captain Waghorn tried to acquaint him that the ship was sinking; but the heeling over of the ship had so jammed the doors of the cabin that they could not be opened.”

“What became of the lieutenant of the watch and the carpenter?”

“The lieutenant of the watch was drowned—­and so indeed was the carpenter.  His body was taken up, I believe, by the same boat which picked up Lieutenant Durham[3].  When I went on board of the ‘Victory,’ I saw the carpenter’s body before the galley fire—­some women were attempting to recover him, but he was quite dead.  There was a strong westerly breeze, although the day was fine; and the wind made the water so rough that there was great danger of the boats getting entangled in the rigging and spars, when they came to take the men off, or more would have been saved.”

[Footnote 3:  Afterward Admiral Sir Philip Durham.]

“How many do you think were lost altogether?” inquired Anderson.

“We had our whole complement on board, eight hundred and sixty-five men; and there were more than three hundred women on board, besides a great many Jews with slops and watches; as there always are, you know, when a ship is paid and the men have any money to be swindled out of.  I don’t exactly know how many men were saved, but there was only one woman, which was the one I dragged out of the port.  There was a great fat old bumboat woman, whom the sailors used to call the ’Royal George’—­she was picked up floating, for she was too fat to sink; but she had been floating the wrong way uppermost, and she was dead.  There was a poor little child saved rather strangely.  He was picked up by a gentleman who was in a wherry, holding on to the wool of a sheep which had escaped and was swimming.  His father and mother were drowned, and the boy did not know their names; all that he knew was that his own name was Jack; so they christened him John Lamb, and the gentleman took care of him.”