Mr. Buddle was nearly exhausted, when he caught hold of a small piece of timber that was floating near him; a nail which projected from it wounded him on the breast; he fainted, and did not recover his senses until he found himself lying on the beach upon a heap of dead bodies.  He attempted in vain to rise; for though he felt no pain, his left leg was broken, his knee cut almost half through, and his body much bruised.  In this state he was discovered, and carried by some persons to a large fire until further assistance could be obtained, and he was then conveyed to the hospital.

One of the officers of the Sceptre, who is still alive, and who happened to be on shore at the time this terrible catastrophe occurred, declares, that nothing imagination could conceive ever equalled the horrors of that night.  When the first signals of distress were made from the Sceptre, the whole population of Cape Town, with the officers and soldiers of the garrison, crowded down to the beach, in the vain hope of being able to afford some assistance.  The night was bitterly cold; the wind blew with terrific violence, and the sea, lashed into fury, broke with a deafening roar upon the beach.  As night approached, and darkness hid the vessel from their sight, the feelings of the agonized spectators became almost insupportable.  The booming of the guns alone told that the ship still lived among the raging waters; whilst ever and anon a piercing shriek announced that the work of death had begun.

All along the beach large fires were lighted, as beacons to guide those who might be cast upon the shore.  At length the ship was driven nearer, and again she became visible from the land.  She appeared, says an eye-witness (before mentioned), like a huge castle looming in the distance.  The hopes of the spectators revived as she heeled on towards them, and they all stood ready to give assistance whenever it should be available.  At one moment, a fearful crash was heard—­next, a piercing shriek, and the flash of the torches waved in the air displayed the struggling forms of the drowning seamen, tossed to and fro upon the waves amongst masses of the wreck, which, in many instances, killed those whom the waters would have spared.

The only help that the people on shore could render to the unhappy sufferers was, to watch the opportunity when the waves brought a body near to the land, and then to rush into the water, holding one another at arm’s length, and to grasp the exhausted creature before he was borne back by the receding wave.

In this manner forty-seven men were saved, together with Mr. Shaw, a master’s mate, and two midshipmen, of the names of Spinks and Buddle, before-mentioned.  Six officers had fortunately been on shore at the time; all the others, with the captain, were lost on the wreck, together with about three hundred and ninety-one seamen and marines.

The people of Cape Town and the troops were employed the whole night in searching for the dead, amongst whom they discovered the son of Captain Edwards, with one hand grasping an open Bible, which was pressed to his bosom, the parting gift, perhaps, of a fond mother, who had taught the boy to revere in life that sacred volume, from which he parted not in death.