The captain being unable from ill health to make any great exertion to save his life, was lowered into the pinnace, into which were already crowded as many men as she could hold, and they took another rope on board, to make a last attempt to form a communication with the shore.  The boat had scarcely left the side of the ship before a sea struck and upset her.  The captain, supported by two men, made his way through the surf with great difficulty and got on shore, followed by the rest of the boat’s crew, who, some by swimming and others by help of oars and spars, saved themselves from destruction.  The gig was now the only boat left on board; she was lowered from the stern, and the first and second lieutenants, with eighteen men, jumped into her.  They were all fortunate enough to reach the shore, and some of the men gallantly returned to the vessel, and succeeded in landing about twenty others.  Again, the gig repaired to the wreck, and took off some more of the crew, but this time she was unfortunately upset in the surf, though no lives were lost.

When the men left on the wreck saw themselves thus deprived of the last chance of escape, they raised the most piteous cries for assistance, although they knew that their comrades had no means of affording it.  It has been said that ’man is a bundle of inconsistencies,’ and here was a proof of the assertion.  These were in all probability the very men who had betaken themselves to their hammocks a short time before, and had refused to assist in providing for their own safety; they had disobeyed orders, and despised discipline, and now we find them imploring others for that deliverance which they had neglected to provide for themselves.  Most of them had been drinking the spirits, and were so stupified that they were incapable of taking advantage of the floating spars and planks to which they might have clung, and so gained the land.

By drunkenness the bed of the ocean has been rendered a foul and gloomy charnel house, where the bones of thousands of our fellow-men await the summons of the Archangel’s trumpets, when ’the sea shall give up her dead.’  The reckless seamen, though unprepared for another world, hurry themselves into the presence of their Judge, to meet the drunkard’s doom.

It has been related that upon one occasion, when the shipwreck of a large packet seemed inevitable, the sailors grew tired of working at the pumps, and shouted ‘to the spirit-room!’ They saw death staring them in the face, and to drown their terror for the moment, they desired to die drunk.  A post-captain in the navy, who was on board the packet, knowing what would be the result if they got at the spirits, took his stand at the door of the spirit-room, with a pistol in each hand, and declared in the most solemn manner, that he would shoot the first man who attempted to enter.  The men seeing themselves defeated, returned to the pumps, and by the blessing of God, the vessel was brought in safe with all her crew.[15]