A most heartrending scene must that have been!  The people were so benumbed with cold and exhaustion, and paralysed by fear, that many of them could no longer cling to the ropes and spars for support, and every wave that broke over the wreck, washed away its victims.

Many in despair leaped overboard, and attempted to swim to shore, but the eddy caused by the wreck was so strong, that they were carried out to sea; and in spite of the attempts made by those on board to rescue them, they all perished.  Mr. Tucker, a midshipman, lost his life in the endeavour to reach the bow of the ship.

About half an hour later the poop was washed away, and carried towards the shore.  Seventy or eighty men who were upon it seemed likely to be saved from the surrounding destruction.  The people on the beach crowded to the spot where they would probably be driven, that they might render every possible assistance; but what was their horror to see a tremendous wave strike the poop, capsize it, and turn it over and over; whilst every one of those who clung to it perished!

But the terrors of that awful night were not yet exhausted.  The wreck, to which the remaining officers and men were clinging, heeled towards the shore; but when the gale increased and blew with redoubled force, it heeled off again, rent fore and aft, and parted in two places—­before the main-chains, and abaft the fore-chains—­and then all disappeared from the eyes of the awe-stricken spectators on the beach.

High above the crash of timbers and the roaring of the blast, rose the despairing cry of hundreds of human beings who perished in the waters, and whose mutilated forms, with the fragments of the wreck, strewed the beach for miles on the following morning.

Thirty or forty seamen and marines still clung to the bow, the sea breaking over them incessantly; they kept their hold, however, in the fond hope that the signal gun remaining, might by its weight prevent the bow from being capsized; but the timbers, unable to resist the fury of the tempest, suddenly parted,—­the gun reeled from side to side, and the unhappy men shared the fate of their companions.  It has been said that during that awful time, whilst threatened with instant death, many of these men were in a stupor, with their hands locked in the chain plates.

Among the incidents connected with the wreck, it is related that Mr. Buddle, a midshipman, (one of the few who escaped,) was cast upon the waves almost insensible.  He had not strength to strike out for the beach, and he therefore merely tried to keep himself above water.  This proved to be the means of saving his life, for he floated in a direction parallel with the shore, and avoided the huge pieces of wreck by which all his companions who made directly for land (excepting three) were dashed to pieces.