STORM WARRIORS:
OR,
Life-Boat Work
ON
THE GOODWIN SANDS.
BY THE REV. JOHN GILMORE, M.A.,

RECTOR OF HOLY TRINITY, RAMSGATE; AUTHOR OF "THE RAMSGATE LIFE-BOAT,"
IN MACMILLAN'S MAGAZINE.

FOURTH THOUSAND.

LONDON:
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1875.

[All rights reserved.]

LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS.
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

TO
THE MOST BELOVED MEMORY OF MY LATE FATHER,
JOHN GILMORE, Commander, R.N.,
AND TO THE MOST BELOVED MEMORY OF
MY LATE ELDEST BROTHER,
ROBERT GRAHAM GILMORE, Capt., R.N.R.,
TWO MOST BRAVE, AND SKILFUL, AND TRUE,
AND LOVING-HEARTED SAILORS,
WHO HAVE PASSED IN FAITH AND PEACE TO THE
HAVEN THAT THEY HUMBLY SOUGHT,
I INSCRIBE THIS WORK.

J. G.

PREFACE.

"O Mamma, I do hope that we shall be wrecked on the Goodwin Sands, that we may be saved by the brave life-boat men!"

"You horrid boy, hold your tongue, do," replied the Mamma, who was anticipating, with some degree of nervousness, starting upon a voyage for Australia in about three weeks' time, and could scarcely be expected to enter to the full into her young son's very practical enthusiasm.

But within the last half hour the boy's shrill voice had been heard at the Ramsgate pier-head, among the cheers that welcomed the life-boat back from a night of toil and triumph on the Goodwin; and for the present, to be saved from a wreck by the life-boat men is to him one of the most delightful ideas on earth.

After reading an article in 'Macmillan's' of the life-boat men's doings, a brave English Admiral, then commanding a fleet, wrote—"My heart warms to the gallant fellows; tell them so, and please give them the enclosed (a guinea each) from an English Admiral without mentioning my name."

A Kentish Squire, sending a donation of a guinea for each of the men wrote,—"To read the brave self-sacrificing doings of the Ramsgate life-boat men, makes me proud of the men of my county."

Other gentlemen wrote, and ladies wrote, and by-and-by we heard from Australia, America, South America, and also from other parts of the world came evidence, that English hearts, wherever they are, cannot but feel deeply as they read the simple narrative of such gallant deeds. "Your life-boat stories have undoubtedly helped on the good life-boat cause," said Mr. Lewis.

"The public have evinced considerable interest in those tales of life-boat work," said Mr. Macmillan; and so the idea grew that I must write a book about the life-boat work on the Goodwin Sands.

A formidable idea this for a man with no "learned leisure," and quite unconscious of possessing any especial literary skill, or any especial literary ambition.

Certainly, I could have no difficulty in obtaining full and abundant particulars of the various adventures of the life-boat.

It was gravely said to a friend of mine,—"It is really very wrong of Mr. Gilmore, as a family man, to risk his life in the life-boat." I have been able to get all particulars without risking my life, and without, which is not much less to the point, lumbering up the boat with a useless hand; moreover, I doubt whether I should have had very keen powers of observation, while cold and exhausted and breathless, and clinging for very life to the thwarts, with the seas rushing over me, and tearing at me, striving to wash me out of the boat; which would have been my condition and very soon the condition of any unseasoned landsman who went to share the strife which the experienced boatmen often find it hard enough to endure.

I have managed better: I have had sometimes two, three, or four boatmen up to my house; and we have fought their battles over again; I questioning and cross-questioning, getting particulars from them, small as well as great.

"What did you do next?" To one such question, I remember the answer was—"Why then we handed the jar of rum round, for we were almost beaten to death."—"But with the seas running over the boat, and the boat full of water, it must have been salt-water grog very soon—how did you manage it?"—"Well, Sir, when there was a lull, a man just took a nip; then if there was a cry, 'Look out! a sea!' he put the jar down between his legs, shoved his thumb in the hole, held on to the thwart with his other arm, then bent well over the jar and let the sea break on his back."

Thus getting them to recall incident after incident, I got the full details of each adventure; and when we arrived at the more stirring scenes, it was very exciting work indeed; the men could scarcely sit in their chairs—their muscles worked, faces flushed, and most graphically they told their tales, I, not one whit less excited, taking notes as rapidly as possible.

Truly I must live to be an old man before I forget the hours I have spent in my study with Jarman, Hogben, and Reading, and R. Goldsmith, and Bill Penny, and Gorham, and Solly, and some other of my brave boatmen friends, as they have told me their many experiences and toils and dangers in life-boat work.

To Jarman especially do I owe thanks for his many graphic narratives; he was coxswain of the boat for ten years, and during the time of most of the adventures related.

One difficulty I have had to contend with has been the comparative sameness in the ordinary life-boat services. I could have had nine narratives in one especial fortnight, for nine times was the life-boat out during that time; but it has taken nearly ten years for me to find a sufficient number of narratives so varying in their chief incidents that the book should not of necessity be wearisome from repetition, and at the same time give a picture of the varied experiences and dangers of life-boat work.

I must leave my Readers to judge how far I have gained my object in the selection I have made.

As the few life-boat stories I have already published have been used to some extent in public Readings, Penny Readings, and on the like occasions, I have thought it well to make each story, as far as possible, complete in itself, although to effect this, some repetition of similar incidents has been unavoidable.

I come of a sailor family—this will account to landsmen for my seeming acquaintance with nautical matters; I have never been to sea—this will explain to sailors the ignorance on such matters that they will not have much difficulty in detecting.

"God help the poor fellows at sea!"—"God protect and bless the life-boat men!" (humble, honest, hardworking and most generous and brave-hearted men as I well know full many of them to be);

"And God prosper the good Life-boat Institution, and advance its noble object!" that many a brave fellow may be spared to his family and home; many a good man be plucked from death to be yet the joy and support of loved ones; and many a man, unfitted to meet death, be snatched from its jaws to live to repent and to seek that peace which he had formerly disregarded. With such prayers I launch my book. And may God further it to His glory, by making it instrumental in gaining yet increased sympathy with the already much-loved life-boat cause; thus blessing it to be one of the humble instruments, among many, in helping to work out the results for which, in our sailor-loving land, so many are ever ready to hope, to work, to pray.

One last word. The narratives related are, I firmly believe, as far as possible, strictly and literally true; I am positive the boatmen would not knowingly exaggerate in the least; and I have sought to tell the tales, incident by incident, what the men did, and what the men suffered, and what the men said—simply as they related each circumstance to me.

CONTENTS.

STORM WARRIORS.

CHAPTER I. HOW THE SHIPWRECKED FARED IN DAYS OF OLD, AND THE GROWTH OF SYMPATHY ON THEIR BEHALF.

A worthy Quaker thus wrote:—"I expect to pass through this world but once; if, therefore, there can be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."

Before in fancy we man the Life-boat, and rush out into the storm, and have the salt spray dashing over us, and the wind singing like suppressed thunder in our ears—before we watch the gallant Storm Warriors of the present day, in their life-and-death struggle, charging in through the raging seas to the rescue of the shipwrecked, let us look back and see how the unfortunate by shipwreck fared in the old time, and then take a hasty glance or two, watching the gradual growth, from age to age, of sympathy for the distressed; humanity becoming more pronounced, and more practical; the progressive adaptation of Maritime Law to the advancing tone of feeling; the gradual organization and development of that most noble Society, "The National Life-boat Institution," which has for its sole object the lessening of the dangers of the sea, and the saving of the shipwrecked; and, lastly, the progress and final triumph of the labours of science, in the invention of a life-boat which is able successfully to defy the efforts of the most raging storms.

The "good old days!" Those who sing too emphatically the glories of the "good old days" must either be influenced by the enchantment distance lends to the view, or guided by the wholesome proverb, "Let nothing, except that which is good, be spoken of the dead."

Human nature seems an inheritance unchanging in its properties, and it was in the old time much as it is now, capable of bringing forth fruit good or bad, in accordance with the training it received, or the associations by which it was surrounded. The old days were very far from being either very golden or very good, the strong arm was too often the strong law, and selfishness was far more likely to make the weak ones a prey for plunder, than was compassion to make them objects for assistance. There was a good deal of the Ishmael curse about the old feudal days; the Baron's hand was too ready to be against every man's, and every man's against his; to plunder and to pillage at all convenient opportunities, as well by sea as by land, seemed very much a leading institution.

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Piracy was almost openly recognized; a foreign ship with a rich cargo was too great a temptation for the free sailors of those rough-and-ready days, and there was in reality as much of the spirit of piracy in the rugged justice by which it was endeavoured to suppress the crimes, as in the crimes themselves. Supposing an act of piracy to have been committed, restitution was first demanded from the nation, or maritime town, to which the pirate belonged; and if satisfaction was not obtained, then the aggrieved party was allowed to take out "Letters of Marque," and might sally forth to all intents a pirate, to plunder any ship sailing from the place to which the vessel which had first robbed him belonged. This system was acknowledged under the name of the "Right of Private Reprisal;" and so, what with pirates licensed and unlicensed, ships seeking plunder without any discrimination, and ships seeking revenge without much, Hallam might well write: "In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, a rich vessel was never secure from attack, and neither restitution nor punishment of the criminals was to be obtained from Governments, who sometimes feared the plunderer, and sometimes connived at the offence."

To piracy was added the constant petty warfare and feuds that were carried on between maritime nations, and even between towns of the same nation.

Hallam quotes, "The Cinque Ports, and other trading towns of England, were in a constant state of hostility with their opposite neighbours during the reigns of Edward I. and II.; half the instruments of Rymer might be quoted in proof of these conflicts, and of those with the mariners of Norway and Denmark."

Sometimes mutual envy produced frays between different English towns; thus in the year 1254 the Winchilsea mariners attacked a Yarmouth galley, and killed some of her men.

The evil effects of this confusion of might with right, the anxiety occasioned by this constant warfare, and by these petty feuds, lingered longer on sea than on land; and kept the morals of the seafaring population of the coasts at the lowest ebb; and as one consequence, the plundering of vessels wrecked on the shores was in all parts of Europe carried on with as ruthless a hand, as was piracy and privateering afloat.

It may be somewhat interesting to consider the gradual progress of legislation with reference to this very terrible system and crime of wrecking; and while doing so, we shall receive further proof of how the rough mastery of the strong over the weak crept into the Laws, and how full a development it had in such laws, as especially related to wrecks and wreckage.

It is hard in the present day to conceive how, in the name of any government making claim to the administration of justice, such a law could have been passed as that which existed prior to Henry I., which gave the king complete possession of all wrecked property: ownership on the part of the original possessor was supposed to have been lost by the action of the sea. Whether the law originated in that strong instinct for the appropriation of unconsidered trifles, which is rather a snare to all governments, or whether it was found necessary to make the king the owner of wreckage, in order to lessen the temptation to cause vessels to be wrecked, and their crews murdered for the sake of pillage, no unfrequent occurrence in those days, however it was, the law existed, and the shipwrecked merchant might come struggling ashore upon a broken spar, and find the coast strewn with scattered but still valuable goods, so lately his, but now by law his no longer, any more than they belonged to the half dozen rude fishermen who stood watching the torn wreck, and dispersed cargo being wave-lifted high upon the beach.

Henry I., whose declining years were years of tender and deep sadness, on account of his own losses at sea, was somewhat more compassionate in his dealings with the unfortunate by shipwreck.

He decreed that a wreck or wrecked goods should not be considered lost to the owner, or become the property of the Crown, if any man escaped from the wreck with life to the shore.

Henry II. made a feeble enlargement of this scant degree of mercy—he expanded this saving clause, so that if either man or beast came ashore alive, the wreck and goods should still be considered as belonging to the original possessors; but failing this, although the owner should be known beyond all possibility of doubt, all the saved property should belong to the king; so that in those old days, if a cat was supposed to have nine lives, it was quite sufficient to account for its being for so long a popular institution on board ship; for even a cat washing ashore, would become the owner's title-deeds to all of his property that the sea had spared.

Richard I. could be generous in things small as well as great; he could act nobly upon principle as well as upon impulse; it must have been, indeed, only natural to his open unselfish nature and high courage, to spurn the idea of robbing the robbed, of making the victim of the sea's destructive power the further victim of a king's greed; he was prepared to give his laws of chivalry a wide interpretation, and let them ordain succour for the distressed by the rage of waters, as well as for the distressed by the rage of men.

And so when about to take part in the third crusade, King Richard decreed, "For the love of God, and the health of his own soul, and the souls of his ancestors and successors, kings of England.

"That all persons escaping alive from a wreck should retain their goods; that wreck or wreckage should only be considered the property of the king when neither an owner, nor the heirs of a late owner, could be found for it."

For several centuries all European nations had for the foundation of their maritime laws, a certain code, called the Code of Oleron.

There is the usual veil of historical uncertainty clouding the origin of these laws, for while some authorities declare that Richard I. had nothing to do with them, others declare that they were completed and promulgated by Richard, at the Isle of Oleron, as he was returning from one of his crusades, and that they had first and especial reference to the customs on the coasts of some of his continental domains.

The Laws of Oleron contain thirty-seven articles, and make very terrible statements as to the system of wrecking, which in those days disgraced the then civilized nations of the earth, while they show also, that if sinners were then prepared to sin with a high hand, that the authorities were prepared with no less energy to inflict punishment for crime.

Some of the extracts from these laws are as utter darkness compared with light, when you read them beside extracts from the Life-boat journals of the present day, suggesting as they do the customs of the people as regards wrecking, and the scant mercy that was shown to the shipwrecked.

Consider, for instance, the picture as given in the following extracts from the old laws of Oleron:—

"An accursed custom prevailing in some parts, inasmuch as a third or fourth part of the wrecks that come ashore belong to the lord of the manor, where the wrecks take place, and that pilots for profit from these lords, and from the wrecks, like faithless and treacherous villains, do purposely run the ships under their care upon the rocks."

The Code declares, that the lords, and all who assist in plundering the wreck shall be accursed, excommunicated, and punished as robbers. "That all false pilots shall suffer a most rigorous and merciless death, and be hung on high gibbets."

"The wicked lords are to be tied to a post in the middle of their own houses, which shall be set on fire at all four corners, and burnt with all that shall be therein; the goods being first confiscated for the benefit of the persons injured; and the site of the houses shall be converted into places for the sale of hogs and swine."

But if this threat of burning the said wicked lords, and the wholesale confiscation and destruction of their houses and properties, had not sufficient terrors to control such hardened sinners, and if they, or others, were prepared to add murder to robbery, then the laws enacted—

"If people, more barbarous, cruel, and inhuman than mad dogs, murdered shipwrecked folk, they were to be plunged into the sea until half dead, and then drawn out and stoned to death."

Railway directors and others would scarcely like the enforcement of laws parallel to those which dealt with the carelessness of Pilots; which provided, "That if negligence on the part of the Pilot caused shipwreck, he was to make good out of his own means the losses sustained, and if his means were not sufficient, then he should lose his head;" it was meekly suggested; "that some care should be taken by the master and mariners," possibly as much for their own sakes as for the sake of the unfortunate pilot. "That they should be persuaded that the man had not the means to make good the loss, before they cut off his head."

The preamble of an Act of Parliament is generally the summary of the arguments for the necessity of the Bill.

The preamble of a Bill for the repression of crime, may be therefore taken as the expression of the national conviction, that such crimes exist at the time.

If so, during the reign of George II. human nature did not show itself to be one whit better than in earlier days, still were men equally capable of cruel selfishness and wrong, although civilization had done much to curb the outward expression of many of the former evils, and to control, to some extent, the open and virulent barbarities of still darker days.

For we find that the old laws, and barbarous modes of punishment, were not sufficient to cope with the strongly developed tendencies for wrecking, which showed themselves, in various ways, to be existent, and in full activity.

And therefore a new Act was passed, which recited—

"That notwithstanding the good and salutary laws now in being against plundering and destroying vessels in distress, and against taking away shipwrecked, lost, and stranded goods, that still many wicked enormities had been committed to the disgrace of the nation." Therefore certain provisions were enacted, the bearing of which was as follows:—

Death was to be the punishment for the chief of these enormities, such as hanging out false lights for the purpose of bringing vessels into distress.

Death for those who killed, or prevented the escape of shipwrecked persons.

Death for stealing goods from a wreck, whether there be any living creature on board or not.

Acts of Parliament in following years felt the impress of the more merciful spirit of legislation which began to prevail. The punishment of death for theft from a wreck was reduced to imprisonment; while penal servitude for life was made the penalty for a new development of crime, namely, that of wilfully scuttling, or setting on fire, or wrecking a ship for the purpose of defrauding or damaging Insurance Offices or Owners.

The existing Merchant Shipping Act of 1854, and the amendments and additions to it, now form the Code by which all maritime questions are arranged; and most of the barbarities, cruelties, and wrongs which, for so many ages, added to the perils of the sea, both as to life and property, are now sufficiently guarded against.

But still a most subtle cruelty and fatal wrong is left almost altogether untouched, that of sending vessels to sea in an unseaworthy condition, as to hull, or spars, or sails, or rigging, or perhaps dangerously overladen; many a vessel only worthy of being utterly condemned, which no office would think for one moment of insuring, and that would scarcely pay for breaking up, is bought cheap, patched up, and sent, perhaps, to float up and down our coasts as a Collier, a sort of dingy coffin, only waiting to be entombed by the first heavy gale and raging sea in which she is caught, and then to go quickly down to her grave, carrying with her her crew, unless they have taken warning in time, and found some chance of escaping, which they are not slow to take advantage of, knowing the nature of the craft they are in; but many a brave sailor finds no escape, and feels no hope, when once the heavy gale breaks on the crazy craft, and thus dies a victim to one of the treacherous, and permitted, and most fatal cruelties of our most Christian and most enlightened age; but this state of things, we may well believe, will not be permitted to last much longer; the attention of the public has been thoroughly aroused to the subject, more especially by the zealous, energetic, and unselfish action of Samuel Plimsol, Esq., M.P., who having the welfare of the poor sailor most thoroughly at heart, has attacked with every courage the still existing abuses, arising chiefly from the deficiencies in our Maritime Code, and all who have sympathy with the sailor must wish him success, and who has not? but it is hard work to develop legislative action, even from wide-spread national sympathy; but the work is commenced; and as one result of his action, a Royal Commission has been issued by Her Majesty. The following is a synopsis of the opening instructions of the Commission:—

Victoria R.

Whereas—We have deemed it expedient for divers good causes and considerations that a commission should forthwith issue to make inquiry with regard to the alleged unseaworthiness of British Registered Ships; whether arising from overloading, deck-loading, defective construction, form, equipment, machinery, age or improper stowage; and also to inquire into the present system of Marine Insurance; of the alleged practice of undermanning ships; and also to suggest any amendments in the law which might remedy or lessen such evils as may be found to have arisen from the matters aforesaid, &c., &c. Given at our Court at St. James's the 29th day of March, 1873, in the thirty-sixth year of our reign.

By our command,

(Signed) H. A. Bruce.

We may now therefore have great hopes, that there will be speedily some good result, from the spirited manner in which this question of sending unseaworthy vessels to sea has been brought before the public.

Note.—I have to thank a friend for Notes, which he kindly gave me, of extracts which he made from books to which he had access in the British Museum, referring to the Ancient Maritime Laws upon Wrecking. My friend has, since this Chapter was first written, developed his Notes into an Article, which he published in a periodical; I have, nevertheless, not refrained from giving the account, which I think my readers may find interesting.

J. G.

CHAPTER II. WRECKERS.

"O father! I see a gleaming light;

O say what may it be?"

But the father answered never a word—

A frozen corpse was he.

And ever the fitful gusts between

A sound came from the land;

It was the sound of the trampling surf

On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.

The breakers were right beneath her bows

She drifted a dreary wreck,

And a whooping billow swept the crew

Like icicles from her deck."

Longfellow.

"Perhaps some human kindness still

May make amends for human ill."

Barry Cornwall.

As we have considered the growth of legislation upon the question of wrecking and wreckage, and contrasted the more civilized, but not perfect code, now existing, with the barbarous laws of days gone by, we may also, perhaps, well put in contrast the present character and action of our coast population, as a rule, with what they were in days more remote.

Imagine a homeward-bound vessel some two hundred and fifty years ago, clumsy in build, awkward in rig, little fitted for battling with the gales of our stormy coast, but yet manned with strong stouthearted men, who made their sturdy courage compensate for deficiency of other means; think of many perils overcome, a long weary voyage nearly ended, the crew rejoicing in thoughts of home, of home-love and home-rest, the headlands of dear Old England, loved by her sons no less then, than now, lying a dark line upon the horizon, the night growing apace, the breeze freshening, ever freshening, adding each moment a hoarser swell to the deep murmurs of its swift-following blasts; the ship scudding on, breasting the seas with her bluff bows, rising and pitching with the running waves which cover her with foam!

Look on land! keen eyes have watched the signs of the coming storm, men more greedy than the foulest vulture, "more inhuman than mad dogs," have cast most cruel and wistful glances seaward! yes, their eyes light up with the very light of hell, as they see in the dim distance the white sail of a struggling ship making towards the land!

And now try to imagine the scene, as the night falls, and the storm gathers, two or three ill-looking fellows drop in, say, to a low tavern standing in a by-lane that leads from the cliff to the beach, in some village on our south-western coast—soon muttered hints take form, and in low whispers the men talk over the chances of a wreck this wild night; they remember former gains, they talk over disappointments, when on similar nights of darkness, wildness, and storm, vessels discovered their danger too soon for them, and managed to weather the headlands of the bay.

The plot takes form; with many a deep and muttered curse, the murderous decision is taken, that if a vessel can be trapped to destruction, it shall be.

There is an old man of the party whose brow is furrowed with dread lines; he does not say much, but every now and then his eyes glare, and his features work as if convulsed; his comrades look at him, twice, and as a terrific squall shakes the house, a third time: silently he rises and leaves the inn; his mates now look away from him, as if quite unconscious as to what he is about; their stifled consciences cannot do much for them, but can give to each, just one faint half-realized sensation of shame. Now in the pitch darkness of the night, with bowed head, and faltering steps, battling against the storm, the old man leads a white horse along the edge of the cliff, to the top of the horse's tail a lantern is tied, and the light sways with the movement of the horse, and in its movements seems not unlike the mast-head light of a vessel rocked by the motion of the sea. A whisper has gone through the village, of a chance of something happening during the night, and most of the men and many of the women are on the alert, lurking in the caves beneath the cliff, or sheltered behind jutting pieces of rock.

The vessel makes in steadily for the land; the captain grows uneasy, and fears running into danger; he will put the vessel round, and try and battle his way out to sea.

The look-out man reports a dim light ahead; What kind? and Whither away? He can make out that it is a ship's light, for it is in motion. Yes, she must be a vessel standing on in the same course as that which they are on. It is all safe then, the captain will stand in a little longer; when suddenly in the lull of the storm a hoarse murmur is heard, surely the sound of the sea beating upon rocks? yes! look, a white gleam upon the water! Breakers ahead! Breakers ahead! Oh! a very knell of doom; the cry rings through the ship, Down, down with helm, round her to; too late, too late! a crash, a shudder from stem to stern of the stout ship; the shriek of many voices in their agony, green seas sweeping over the vessel, and soon, broken timbers, bales of cargo, and lifeless bodies scattered along the beach, while the shattered remnant of the hull is torn still further to pieces with each insweep of the mighty seas, as they roll it to, and fro, among the rocks. Fearful and crafty the smile that darkened the dark face of the willing murderer, who was leading the horse with the false light, as he heard the crash of the vessel, and the shrieks of the drowning crew, fearful the smiles that darkened the faces of the men and women waiting on the beach, as they came out from their places, ready to struggle and fight among themselves for any spoil that might come ashore; a homeward-bound ship from the Indies—great good fortune, rich spoil—bale after bale is seized upon by the wreckers, and dragged high upon the beach out of the way of the surf—but see, a sailor clinging to a bit of broken mast, with his last conscious effort he gains a footing on the shore, staggers forward and falls. Is he alive? not now! Why did that fearful old woman kneel upon his chest, and cover his mouth with her cloak? Dead men tell no tales! claim no property!

Have such things been possible?

They have, and have been done; traditions of such dread tragedies still linger on the Cornish coast, and it is a matter of history that all around our shores miscreants were to be found, who were ready to sacrifice to their blood-thirsty avarice those whom the rage of water had spared.

Yes, and still many sailors find their worst enemies ashore, and know no danger so great as that of falling into the hands of their fellow-men; but not now in the small harbours or fishing-villages of the coast—not now among the seafaring population of our shores, must wretches capable of such deeds be looked for, but among the degraded quarters of our large maritime towns—among the land-sharks, who haunt the docks, the crimp-houses, the dens of infamy, the low taverns—there Jack may still be wrecked, and drugged, and robbed, and perhaps murdered. But even there darkness has not got it all its own way; for if there are many who are ready to ruin the reckless sailor, there are many others, thank God, who are ready to warn and aid him. Seamen's Churches, Bethels, Sailors' Homes, Sailors' Missionaries, and all sorts of benevolent institutions, seek to struggle with, and overcome, the bad effect of the many evils to which the sailor on shore is exposed.

And the sea-coasts where the Storm Warriors now gather tell a tale of hardihood, of courage, of endurance, and of skill, no less than the olden days could boast of. But now courage is glorified by mercy, and hardihood by sympathy, and endurance is sustained, and skill and enterprise are quickened into action by the noblest feelings, and readiness for self-sacrifice, which can move the heart of man.

If our last pages have been gloomy in the picture they have given of what was frequently done not many generations ago, let us seek a contrast, which shall be as light to darkness, and compare with those scenes of old, a picture of that which happens month after month, and in the winter season week after week, and sometimes, almost day after day, on our own coasts in the present time.

A homeward-bound ship is rushing along, skimming the green seas, seeming to rejoice in the pride of her beauty, strength, and speed; there is some fatal error or accident, and she comes suddenly to destruction. Many men are anxiously on the look-out; they have been watching her closely from the shore, and eagerly preparing for action at the moment of the shipwreck, which for some time they have feared must happen. And now guns fire, and rockets flash, and the signals quickly given are quickly answered, and the Storm Warriors rush into action; they are not now the Storm Pirates as was the case too often of old, they are the Storm Warriors; their flashing lights tell of coming rescue, and do not lure to destruction; for as the gallant life-boat men rush into all danger, make every effort, battling with mad waves and boiling surf, they fight under the noble banner of Mercy—THEIR MISSION IS TO SAVE.

CHAPTER III. THE INVENTOR OF THE LIFE-BOAT.

"The most eloquent speaker, the most ingenious writer, and the most accomplished statesman cannot effect so much as the mere presence of the man who tempers his wisdom and his vigour with humanity."

Lavater.

What dreams had Lionel Luken, coach-builder of London, in the year 1780, or thereabouts? The perils to machines, or coaches, in those days were many and varied; the roads were often rough, and dangerous enough to equal the pleasing variety and exciting accompaniments of a cross-country gallop; the bridges were very few, and the fords very many.

Did Lionel Luken lose coach, or customer, or both, in a rushing flood which overwhelmed some burdensome coach and unhappy travellers at one of these fords? and, thinking over the disaster sorrowfully, patiently, and profitably, as great minds and great hearts will think, did he conceive the idea of a coach warranted against sinking, with air-tight compartments? and then, expanding the idea, did the noble thought occur to him of building a boat that would not merely float in the rush of a flood, but that would defy the troubled waters of a raging sea? And was it thus, that Lionel Luken gained unto himself the immortal honour of being the first inventor of the Life-boat?

In whatever manner the idea presented itself to him, and however it was developed in the mind of the skilful and humane coach-builder, certain it is that it seized him very thoroughly, and that he, being one of the race of God's heroes, alike humane, brave, and earnest, was not content to let his happy, his blessed thought die barren of result, but made noble and persevering efforts to bring his invention to a successful issue. He had high courage, for his courage was inspired by the great hope that his boat might be the instrument of plucking many poor sailors from dread peril, carrying them through threatening seas, snatching them from the very jaws of death, and of restoring them to their loving ones in their loved homes. With this holy ambition, Lionel Luken laboured nobly, as, urged by a like ambition, many now labour nobly for the good life-boat cause. But the old days were not days of quick sympathy, or of ready enterprise, and Luken, although supported, to a certain extent, by royalty, uselessly clamoured at official doors, and sought public patronage in vain.

People seemed then to have no strong objection to other people being drowned, just as they had no strong prejudice against others suffering the tortures of miserable prisons, the worst asylums, or any of the many horrors which a more enlightened age has sought with some degree of success to lessen or remove.

In the year 1785 Luken took out a patent for a boat which, to a great extent, embodied almost all the more needful properties possessed by the present model life-boat; he at the same time published a pamphlet; "Upon the invention, principle, and construction of insubmergible boats." He suggested that such boats should be protected by bands of cork round their gunwales, that they should be rendered buoyant by the use of air-cases, especially at the bow and stern, and that they should be ballasted by an iron keel.

But even when the good man passed from theory to practice, and succeeded at Bamborough in getting a boat converted into a life-boat on the above principles, and when this boat proved a success, and saved many lives, even then he could obtain no support from the authorities in carrying out his grand object.

The story is told of a general who blamed a soldier for ducking at the sound of a cannon ball, saying that he had no business to be a soldier if he had the faintest objection to being shot. On the same principle, the first lord of the Admiralty, in his stern rejections of Luken's many efforts, may have considered that life-boats would interfere with a sailor's prerogative for being drowned; and drowned indeed many of the poor fellows were—swept to destruction in sight of land, for winds were cruel, and rocks were hard, and seas wild, and ships frail, while benevolence slept, and the cries of the drowning did not reach official ears, and Luken's loud appeals on behalf of humanity were disregarded, and he, brave man, who had so long struggled, hoping against hope, became utterly disappointed that the movement, the importance of which he so realized, and for which he had so long laboured, did not become general.

Still he had the satisfaction of seeing his plan adopted in one or two places, in Shields especially, as we shall show; and he had the great happiness of knowing that, time after time, lives were saved by the boats which were built after his model. He had done all that he could, and went on building coaches, not, we may presume, on life-boat principles; and he tried somewhat to content himself, as he looked forward with hope for a time of greater enlightenment and sympathy, when he trusted that the seed he sowed, almost with tears, would bring its harvest of sheaves, and full of this faith, the good man devised an inscription for the stone which should mark his resting-place in a quiet country churchyard, simply stating, "That he was the Inventor of the first life-boat."

Honoured be the memory of Lionel Luken!

CHAPTER IV. THE GROWTH OF THE LIFE-BOAT MOVEMENT.

"What is noble? 'tis the finer

Portion of our mind and heart,

Linked to something still diviner

Than mere language can impart;

Ever prompting—ever seeing

Some improvement yet to plan;

To uplift our fellow-being,

And, like man, to feel for Man."

C. Swain.

If the ear were only as powerful to enable the mind to realize things heard, as the eye is powerful in enabling the mind to realize things seen, many reforms would have been worked out promptly, instead of having to wait year after year, sometimes almost generation after generation, while the mind of the public has had its sympathies but slowly awakened by the constant statement of some evil, and the unceasing demand for its remedy.

Thus it was, that a terrible scene of disaster and death, of which many were the agonized eye-witnesses, did more to urge forward the life-boat cause than had been effected by the report of many similar tragedies, which but few lookers on had seen occur.

It was in the year 1789, a tremendous gale of wind was raging at Newcastle; thousands of the inhabitants were watching the wild sea as it foamed up at the entrance of the port, and they trembled as they saw vessel after vessel stagger on through the sweeping waves, running into the harbour for refuge.

One ship, the Adventurer, missed the entrance of the port, and was driven on to the rocks; the seas rushed over her deck, and flew half-way up the masts; the crew took refuge in the rigging, and the wreck was so near to the pier, that the horrified and terror-stricken people thronging there, could hear the cries for help, and even see the growing shade of the death agony upon the faces of the men, as they became more and more exhausted and faint from exposure to the heavy seas; and then they saw one after another of the seamen torn from his hold and perish miserably; and this within call of these thousands of spectators, who were full of grief and sympathy, but were unable even to attempt a rescue.

Brave men stood powerless, and as they were frantically appealed to, to try and save the drowning men, could only groan over the utter impossibility of rendering them any assistance! Yes! the daring, hardy, skilful sailors, wept with the weeping women, as they stood overwhelmed with helpless horror watching the most heart-rending scene.

Strong boats were there, ready to be manned, boats that had successfully battled with many a rough sea, but they were not life-boats, and to go out into such a mad boil of raging waves in any other kind of boat than a life-boat, would have been certain death to all the crew, without affording the faintest possibility of help to the shipwrecked; and thus, without help, without hope, one after the other of the poor shipwrecked sailors, exhausted and faint, fell back into the wild waves and perished: the vessel was speedily torn to pieces, the crowd slowly and sorrowfully went home; soon the darkness of night shadowed the wild sea and the saddened town, but the day's work was not done—the tragedy was not without fruit, in more senses than one, "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church;" the sympathies of the people were now fully aroused; meetings were at once held at South Shields—a committee was formed—and premiums were offered for the best life-boat.

William Wouldham, a painter, was one of the successful competitors; he presented a model embracing many excellent qualities; Henry Greathead, a boat-builder of South Shields, stood next on the list.

The various models presented were discussed—their more excellent qualities selected—and from the suggestions thus obtained, a model life-boat was planned, from which, as a type, Greathead built a boat, which, either from the fact that he improved upon the model given to him, or because his name, as its builder, was chiefly associated with it, became known as Greathead's life-boat, and he gained the honour of being its inventor—not but what the claims of Wouldham were stoutly asserted; and we may believe by many accepted, for in the parish church of St. Hilda, South Shields, a tombstone erected to the memory of Wouldham bears at its head a model of his life-boat, with the following inscription:—

"Heaven genius scientific gave,

Surpassing vulgar boast, yet he from soil

So rich, no golden harvest reap'd, no wreath

Of laurel gleaned. None but the sailor's heart,

Nor that ingrate, of palm unfading this,

Till shipwrecks cease, or Life-boats cease to save."

Within the next fifteen years, or so, Greathead built about thirty life-boats, eight of which were sent to foreign countries. At last the life-boat cause was wakened into life, but into no vigorous existence; it did not actually die, but lingered on with here and there a spasm of vitality, as some local cause or stirring advocate excited a momentary interest in the question.

Life-boat stations were scattered at long intervals round the coast, and boats of various designs, some very good, were placed at a few of the more dangerous positions on our shores.

The public was not altogether unprepared to move, but was waiting for the needed impulse.

The whole cause, in spite of all its intrinsic merits and great claims upon humanity, waited for the coming man, and he was found in the person of Sir William Hillary, Baronet, one of nature's real noblemen; his heart was great, as his arm was strong; his love for the sea was only equalled by his love for sailors; all that concerned their well-being excited his quick sympathy and active interest, and his feelings were, as a matter of course, very sincere, and very earnest for the life-boat cause.

Sir W. Hillary lived at Douglas, in the Isle of Man. His sympathy for the sailor proved its vitality by being active and practical: he established Sailors' Homes, and in many ways sought their improvement and benefit; and when the hour of danger came, when the storms raged and lives were in peril, Sir William was the first, not only to encourage, but also to lead the boatmen to the rescue of the shipwrecked; he shrank from no danger, he shared all labour, and endured all hardship, and this to such an extent, that he was personally engaged in efforts by which more than three hundred lives were saved.

The following are some of the occasions in which Sir William's heroic efforts were blessed in their results to the saving of life:—

In the year 1825 Sir William, and the crews under him, rescued eighty-seven persons, sixty-two of these from the steamer City of Glasgow; eleven from the Leopard brig; and nine from the Fancy sloop.

In the year 1827 they saved seventeen lives. In 1830, four different crews were rescued, forty-three lives being saved; and in 1832 no fewer than fifty lives were saved from a passenger-ship.

The nature of the perils Sir William Hillary so nobly encountered, and the toils he shared, may be well illustrated by an account of the rescue of the crew of the St. George.

On the 29th of November, 1830, the mail steamer St. George struck on St. Mary's rock, not far from Douglas. The captain had no boats to which he could trust in so violent a sea; he therefore cut away the mainmast, and endeavoured to construct a raft from its wreck, together with the spars which they had on board; but the seas proved too heavy for him to be able to do so, and he signalled his distress to the shore.

Sir William Hillary and a crew of twelve men at once manned the life-boat, and proceeded in the direction of the wreck; they found the steamer hard upon the rock, and surrounded by such a raging boil of surf that any attempt to rescue the unfortunate passengers and crew seemed almost impossible; nevertheless they were not the men to leave their fellow-creatures to perish without making an effort for their safety, at whatever risk that effort must be made; they therefore let the boat rush before the gale into the heart of the surf; here she was completely at the mercy of the wild and broken waves—her rudder was torn off, oar after oar was broken, until scarcely half the number were left—some of the air-tight compartments were strained and filled with water, and rendered useless, and to add to the dismay of the crew, one of the tremendous seas which rushed over the boat washed Sir William and three men overboard; it was only after the greatest difficulty that they were recovered, and, happily, without being much hurt; the life-boat was then hurled by the waves between the steamer and the rock, here the broken mainmast and other wreckage were being driven violently by the surf in all directions, so that the life-boat was in a very whirlpool of danger.

The crew and passengers of the steamer thought, however, that they would be safer in the boat, in spite of the dread peril she was in, than on board the steamer, which was being torn and beaten to pieces, and they left the steamer for the boat; the boat had then more than sixty persons on board; and hour after hour her crew struggled in vain to get her out of the position of extreme danger, in which the force of the gale and the rush of the waves held them as in a vice; every moment was one of very great hardship to all on board the boat, as the surf continually flew over them in volumes, and the danger of being crushed by the wreckage, that was tossing and leaping in the contest of the mad sea that raged around them, was incessant.

After nearly three hours of the hardest struggle, they managed to get the almost disabled boat a little clear from the rock and the wreck, but still they were unable to make any headway against the seas, or get beyond the circle of surf, when at length the sea, as if tired of sporting with its shattered prey, drove the boat so far beyond the range of the surf, that other boats were able to come to her assistance and all lives were saved.

Such was the nature of the perils and hardships that Sir William Hillary often readily and nobly encountered in his efforts to save life.

When, therefore, urged by the cruel necessities of the case, he pleaded for the life-boat cause, and illustrated his pleading by his own personal experience, men began at last to listen to what he urged. He described not only that the dangers of the shipwrecked were fearfully increased from want of due means for their rescue, in the absence of boats properly constructed to contend against the peculiar danger arising from the raging seas and broken water which generally surrounded a wreck, but he showed also how, from the same cause, brave men too often rushed to their death.

That in answer to the cry for rescue, men put to sea, urged by the generous impulses of sympathy and courage, went forth possessed of all the needed bravery, the strength, the skill, the determination to perish or to save: they did often perish, and did not save, because they needed the boats which could alone safely contend with the dangers that they had to encounter.

Two members of Parliament, Mr. Thomas Wilson and Mr. George Hibbert, were especially moved by such a tale, told by such a man, out of a brave, loving, full heart, and illustrated by such terrible experience, and they gave Sir William their very hearty co-operation; and these three men became, in the year 1825, the founders of the "Royal National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck."

Sir W. Hillary undertook the formation of a branch committee of the society for the Isle of Man, and so fully succeeded that, by the year 1829, each of the four harbours of the station possessed a life-boat.

Under the organization of this society, and with the aid of some fourteen smaller, and local associations, and notably with the assistance of "The Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners' Royal Benevolent Society," which was instituted in the year 1839, and provided seven life-boats on different parts of the coast, the life-boat cause went on, doing much noble work, but leaving very much more undone; and very much that was effected was not done in really the best way.

Thus the life-boat cause had prospered, the work was becoming organised; but still much was wanting; it needed some new and great stimulus—and in a few years the stimulus came.

CHAPTER V. THE INVENTION AND LAUNCHING OF THE PRIZE LIFE-BOAT.

"In spite of rock and tempest's roar,

In spite of false lights on the shore,

Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea,

Our hearts, our hopes are all with thee;

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,

Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,

Are all with thee—are all with thee!"

"The Ship of State."—Longfellow.

In the year 1848, the Admiralty called for returns from the various coastguard stations which gird the coast, as to the condition of the life-boat service in their respective neighbourhoods; the results showed a state of things very far from satisfactory. It appeared that the number of life-boats was about one hundred, but out of these, only fifty-five were reported as being in good repair, and a great many of this number were declared to be of such heavy construction, that very much of their usefulness was sacrificed.

Twenty boats were reported as being only in fair repair, and twenty-one boats were declared to be bad and unserviceable. From many stations came the reports of great loss of life from want of a boat. From Ballycotton, for instance, where a life-boat could be easily manned, and yet, sad to state, that within fifteen years no fewer than sixty-seven lives had been lost, no life-boat being there to effect a rescue.

The evidence for the necessity for further effort was also afforded, by the long distances which existed between many of the life-boat stations. Twenty-seven miles, thirty-three, forty-five, ninety-four, one hundred and forty-one, and one hundred and fifty-one miles being among such distances; thus in various places the coast was left absolutely unprotected for many miles together.

Equally sad, and similar to that given by Sir W. Hillary, was the evidence as to the faulty construction of many of the boats, inasmuch as although they were a decided improvement upon the ordinary boat, yet they too often proved incompetent to contend against the rush of seas and broken water to which they were exposed; from this cause the most painful tragedies frequently occurred, the loss of brave fellows who went out to save others from a dreadful death, and who through no lack of courage, of strength, or of skill, on their part, but from the faulty construction of the boat they were in, found one common grave with those whom they sought to rescue from the raging seas.

Thus one life-boat gained a most sad notoriety: on one occasion she drowned four of her crew; on another occasion twelve; and on a third, twenty men were drowned out of her. A second, so called, life-boat lost on one occasion two men, on a second three men, and on a third all her crew; when she was most properly condemned as too dangerous to be of use.

A Scarborough life-boat lost sixteen men. At Dunbar, on the occasion of a man-of-war being wrecked, the life-boat in two trips saved forty-five men; on her third trip she upset, and nearly all who were in her were drowned; she was condemned, and for many years no life-boat at all was stationed there, although from time to time many lives were lost.

Thus we find that in the year 1850 life-boat work was no unknown work. Life-boat societies had done much, and were doing much. Life-boats had been stationed in various localities during the preceding half century, and there were at the date mentioned seventy-five life-boats in England, eight in Scotland, and eight in Ireland; but nearly one-half of these were, from one cause or another, more or less unserviceable; and many of the most exposed parts of the coast were still unprovided with life-boats. In that year, 1850, there were six hundred and eighty-one wrecks: the loss of life was about seven hundred and eighty-four, including a crew of eleven men, whose boat upset one stormy November night, they having put off to the assistance of a vessel in distress.

It was evident that the life-boat system was not sufficiently developed or general, and there was, moreover, no universally approved model of a boat in which all boatmen might have confidence; this latter consideration was especially brought before the notice of the public by an accident which occurred to the Newcastle life-boat, the sad particulars of which are given in the following extracts from a letter written December 14th, 1849, by the then treasurer of the life-boat "Friend of the Ports of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and South Shields," Mr. R. Anderson.

"The life-boats of the Port of Newcastle, stationed at the entrance of the Tyne in North and South Shields, have been for about sixty years instrumental in saving the crews of those vessels which have been unfortunately stranded at the entrance of the port. No correct account was kept of the exact number so rescued from danger previous to the year 1841, but since then four hundred and sixty-six persons have been brought ashore from sixty-two vessels.

"On the morning of the fatal accident, the Betsy, of Littlehampton, laden with salt, was stranded on the hard sand; and the receding tide left her among heavy breakers, with a heavy ebb-tide running past her.

"The life-boat was launched about 9 A.M., and being manned by twenty-four pilots, immediately proceeded to the vessel; and, having hailed her, and given instructions to the people on board to prepare two ropes ready to throw to them, they waited for a little time between the ship and the shore for the ropes to be got ready, then they again proceeded to the vessel, and succeeded in getting alongside; the rope from the after end of the vessel was received into the boat; the rope from the fore end had just been received and reeved in the ring at the stern, and a few fathoms hauled into the boat; and the shipwrecked men were preparing to descend, when a terrific knot of sea recoiling from the resistance it met at the vessel's bow, threw the bow of the boat up over end, and the bow-rope not holding, the boat was driven in that position, with all her crew thrown into the stern, astern of the vessel, into the rapid ebb-tide, which running into her, caused the boat to capsize, and all the men were washed into the sea; they were carried away by the tide.

"The accident was seen from the shore, and immediately the second life-boat was launched from South Shields, and, with seventeen pilots on board, proceeded with all possible despatch to the assistance of the crew of the former boat; they found and rescued three, one had succeeded in getting on board the brig, and thus only four out of the twenty-four were saved.

"Nor were the crew of the stranded vessel forgotten; the third life-boat from North Shields was launched; and notwithstanding the appalling accident, a crew of seventeen brave fellows manned her instantly, and proceeded alongside the Betsy, and brought all her crew, and the one pilot who succeeded in getting on board her, safely ashore.

"The first life-boat which had turned end-over-end was washed ashore bottom up; her great want was the self-righting principle."

Urged by the necessities of the case, which became daily more apparent, the Duke of Northumberland, President of the National Life-boat Society, organized a plan by which the intellect and experience of the world at large should be encouraged to invent a life-boat, which should be on all points as perfect as possible.

His Grace offered a premium of one hundred guineas for the best model of a life-boat. The defects of the existing boats were pointed out as a guide to inventors, they being chiefly:

"1. They do not upright themselves in the event of being upset.

"2. That they are too heavy to be readily launched or transported along the coast in case of need.

"3. That they do not free themselves from water fast enough.

"4. That they are very expensive."

A committee was formed to examine, and report upon the models.

The offer of His Grace, and the conditions of the competition, were published in October 1850, and no expense or pains were spared in making them known.

The interest and excitement produced by the notice were deeply and widely felt; the challenge was accepted by great numbers of people—amateurs, to whom to invent a life-boat seemed a laudable and holy ambition, vied with the boat-builders who had thoughts of professional reputation to give a spur to their humanity—speedily in all parts of England, and in many other parts of the world, busy minds and skilful hands were at work.

In due time models came teeming in upon the committee in almost overwhelming numbers.

Not content with asking for models of life-boats, the committee also asked for information upon certain defined points, the models sent in numbered no fewer than two hundred and eighty, while the answers to inquiries were sufficient to fill five folio volumes of manuscript. As for the models, every possible form and every possible principle seemed to find its illustration.

There were boats designed upon the principle of Pontoons, of Catamarans, of Rafts, Steamers, Paddle-box Boats, North Country Cobles—every possible modification of the whaleboat, and of the ordinary boat; boats made of wood, of tin, of galvanized corrugated iron, boats with cork linings, with air-boxes, with water-ballast, with no ballast, tubular boats, boats a series of tubs, a series of boxes; to be propelled by oars, by sails, by paddle-wheels, by screws, to be worked by hand power, by steam power, by atmospheric air.

The Committee might well feel overwhelmed at such a perfect rush of ideas and designs thus suggested for their consideration; and as they began to go into details, they found it almost impossible to decide which model was best, where the elements of excellency were so varied and so numerous, especially as they found that so large a number of the boats presented such excellent combinations of different good qualities.

The committee therefore deemed it necessary to organize a regular competitive examination, assigning marks to different necessary qualifications, that they might thus be able to arrange the boats presented in an order of merit, dependent upon their respective combination of good qualities.

The following is the list of qualities that were required in the boats, with the number of marks apportioned to each.

With their mode of examination thus fully organized, the Committee patiently and carefully set about their interesting task, and after much labour it was decided that the model presented by Mr. James Beeching, of Great Yarmouth, possessed the best combination of necessary qualifications, and to it was awarded eighty-six out of the one hundred marks; and the inventor had the gratification of receiving the following letters from the Duke of Northumberland, and from the Chairman of the Life-boat Committee:—

Alnwick Castle,
13th August, 1851.

Sir,

It gives me much pleasure to send you a cheque for £105, as the prize for the best model of a life-boat.

And I must thank you for the assistance you have given me and the Society for Saving Life from Shipwreck by that model, which will enable us to establish a better life-boat on the coast than those at present in use.

Yours, &c.,
Northumberland.

To Mr. James Beeching.

Somerset House, London,
14th August, 1851.

Sir,

I have the gratification to acquaint you that the Committee appointed to examine the life-boat models sent to Somerset House, to compete for the premium offered by His Grace the Duke of Northumberland for the best model of a life-boat, have awarded the prize to your model.

I am therefore directed by His Grace to transmit to you the enclosed cheque for £105, and the report of the Committee upon which the award was founded.

Yours, &c.,
J. Washington, R.N.,
Chairman of the Committee.

To Mr. James Beeching.

A fine boat, called the Northumberland, was speedily built by Mr. Beeching, and she immediately commenced a more memorable career than has ever fallen to the lot of any other boat—the stormy petrel of the sea—the pioneer of a work not more glorious than much which had been attempted, but which crowned almost every brave effort with abundant success, where science aided sympathy with all the fruits of her skill, so that the double cry of agony, where on the one hand there was lamentation for the shipwrecked and lost, and on the other a cry, if possible, even more piteous still, for those who perished in their efforts to save the shipwrecked—a cry that had been too often heard, was soon almost to cease from the land.

The early passage in the history of the Northumberland seemed to suggest that hers was to be a holiday existence, her career commenced with a round of triumphant display and popularity. She visited various parts of the coast, and all her properties were displayed, creating everywhere confidence in her powers, and enthusiasm at the thought of the stimulus to be given to the great work of saving life from shipwreck, by the possession of such a noble and efficient boat.

There was a great gathering at Ramsgate to witness the first public trial the boat was to be put through; naval officers, elder brethren of the Trinity House, scientific men of all services were interested deeply in the series of experiments to which she was to be subjected, for they all fully realized how the question of life or death to thousands, yea, in the course of time, to tens of thousands, was involved in the problem, as to whether any boat could be found competent to resist all the fury of a raging and broken sea.

The Northumberland was manned, and first her stability was to be tested; all her crew stood and jumped upon one gunwale, but failed to upset her; her self-righting property was next to be tried; they brought her under a crane, and passing a rope from her mast round her bottom, gradually hauled her over, and she was bottom up; they let go the strain on the rope, and in five seconds she had righted herself, and in twenty seconds more she had emptied herself of water. Again she was to be turned over, and this time fresh interest was to be excited in the experiment, as Mr. Samuel Beeching, the son of the inventor and builder of the boat, determined to show his confidence in her powers by being in her when she was upset: slowly the strain is again put upon the rope under-running the boat, and she gradually turns over, Mr. Beeching clinging to the centre thwart the while; a moment's suspense, the boat is keel up, and the brave man out of sight—scarcely time for a pang of fear, when the boat comes round with a throb, and the man is seen standing on the thwart, cheering in answer to the cheers with which the success of the experiment and his re-appearance are greeted.

Now for a trial at sea, among the bright leaping waves, which seem full of playfulness and glee, as if ready to greet her merrily, and to whisper no word of the many deadly conflicts she must wage with them in coming days, ere she shall snatch the spoil of human life from their rage and strength.

Strong arms are at the oars, the good ash staves bend, and away she shoots through the waves, holding her own successfully as other boats race with her.

Her sailing powers must be tried, and a revenue-cutter accepts her challenge; both bowl along with a fresh breeze bellying their sails, and the life-boat behaves well and bravely, and proves also a success under sail.

The breeze freshens, and there is a great bubble of leaping surf in the broken water in the angle of the pier; an ordinary boat would speedily be swamped there; but there the life-boat rides on the tumbling seas like a thing of life; every experiment increases the confidence that her crew and the lookers-on feel in the boat.

Seaward now for a sterner trial, and on the field where her numerous future contests are to be fought, and her numerous victories gained; out and away where the rolling seas break in upon the Goodwin Sands, and where they fret into surf as they are checked in their race, and make the sea white with the foam of their falling crests; away into the tumbling seas, running the gauntlet of the leaping waves; away, and away, she speeds round the north end of the Sands, then steers for the North Foreland, until all her crew are perfectly delighted with her powers, and return to describe the trip, and how she behaved, and the confidence they have in her, that they would not hesitate to go in her into any broken water whatever.

Great is the congratulation and gladness among the naval and scientific men who are watching the experiments, and many thank God, that at last the problem is solved—that a boat is found able to defy the broken surf and raging waves—a fit and safe instrument in the hands of the brave-hearted boatmen, who are ever ready to do and dare all that is possible, in their efforts to save life from shipwreck.

The crew that went out in the boat made the following report:—

To the Harbour Commissioners.

"This is to certify that we have this day been to sea in the Northumberland prize life-boat, and have had every opportunity of proving her sailing qualities; she has also been through a great deal of broken water and heavy sea, and we consider her, in the true sense of the word, perfectly qualified to encounter any bad weather when occasion might require her services, and we should be quite willing to go in her to any vessel in distress at any time."

The prize life-boat was purchased in December, 1851, for £250, by the Trinity Board, for the use of the Royal Harbour at Ramsgate, with the dread Goodwin Sands for her special cruising ground.

The trial of the life-boat became an especial feature at the various regattas held round the coast. The interest in her became very general, and a great move was given to the life-boat cause.

At Teignmouth they determined that the trial should be of a very practical and somewhat sensational nature—a capsize out at sea! At eleven o'clock one stormy morning the signal was given to man the life-boat. In about one quarter of an hour she was making her way out to sea, and then her crew endeavoured to capsize her; they had tried in vain to do so in smooth water, would she defy their efforts in a rough tumble of sea and heavy weather? They set all her sails and manœuvred in every way to upset her, but without effect, when, while she was heeling over almost on her broadside, with all her sails full, the crew, at a given signal, jumped on her lee-gunwale, and down on her broadside she went; her sails were let go, and she righted at once, only two of her crew were thrown out of her, and these, with their cork jackets on, were bobbing up and down quite happily among the waves; they were soon picked up, and the boat speedily on her way again, the men more pleased and confident than ever in her wonderful powers.

But the National Life Boat Institution was not quite contented with the prize life-boat; she had gained eighty-six marks out of the one hundred in the competition of models; she was near perfection, but still could be improved upon; and as the great aim of the Society was to obtain a perfect boat, they would naturally not be content with anything less than this desired perfection, a boat that should satisfy the judges to the full in every particular, and thus merit the whole one hundred marks, instead of the eighty-six.

Mr. Peake, the then assistant master-shipwright at the Royal Dockyard at Woolwich, was appealed to. He made the matter his especial study. He took the prize-boat as his model, and combining with it some of the best qualities of the other boats, constructed a boat not differing much, or in any essential point, from the prize one, but yet sufficiently an improvement upon it to be pronounced as far as possible perfect on all points; and it was at once adopted by the National Life Boat Institution as the standard model life-boat.

The life-boat cause was now to know no further stay in its onward course, the Committee was formed of thoroughly earnest and warm-hearted men—men full of practical knowledge and warm sympathy. Moreover, the Institution was blessed with as able and indefatigable a Secretary as an Institution ever rejoiced in, this in the person of Mr. Richard Lewis, Barrister-at-Law; the appeal to the public for sympathy and assistance was general, and generally acknowledged.

The Society told of dangerous headlands, of treacherous sands and tides all round the coast, of shipwrecks frequent, and deaths often occurring for want of a life-boat, and of life-boats, faultless in construction, only waiting the time when the Committee should have the means to place them where needed; the funds grew as the wants were realized, and the heart of the nation was warmed to the noble cause; the wreck-chart still showed a dismal circumference of casualties round the coast, marking dangerous points where many vessels had been lost; but the inner line of defence began also to show itself on the map, and the marks of the life-boat stations began year by year to confront more regularly the signs of places where danger and shipwreck were most frequent.

But more of this, and the noble Life-boat Society, in the closing chapter of the book. It is time that we launched our life-boat for its real work. The waves are roaring on the Goodwin, the life-boat is at her moorings in the harbour of Ramsgate, the brave boatmen—Storm Warriors indeed—are on the watch, hour after hour through the stormy night walking the Pier, and giving keen glances to where the Goodwin Sands are white with the churning seething waves that leap high, and plunge and foam amid the treacherous shoals and banks. Look! a flash is seen; listen, in a few seconds, yes, there is the throb and boom of a distant gun, a rocket cleaves the darkness; and now the cry—Man the life-boat! Man the life-boat! Seaward Ho! Seaward Ho! But now in a boat efficient on all points, whose only career shall be to save, and not to add victim to victim, as she herself is overcome by the rage of the sea.

CHAPTER VI. THE RAMSGATE LIFE-BOAT AT WORK.—STORM WARRIORS TO THE RESCUE.

"Ye mariners of England,

That guard our native seas;

Whose flag has braved a thousand years

The battle and the breeze!

Your glorious standard launch again

To match another foe;

And sweep through the deep,

While the stormy winds do blow,

While the battle rages loud and long

And the stormy winds do blow."

It was a Sunday night, in the month of February, a few years ago, the anxious boatmen, who kept a diligent watch, shrugged their shoulders as they cast keen glances to windward, and declared that it was going to be a very dirty night.

Heavy masses of cloud skirted the horizon as the sun set; and as the night drew on, violent gusts of wind swept along, accompanied by snow-squalls.

It was a dangerous time for vessels in the Channel, and it proved fatal to one at least.

Before the light broke on Monday morning, the Margate lugger Eclipse put out to sea to cruise round the shoals and sands in the neighbourhood of Margate, on the look out for the victims of any disasters that might have occurred during the night.

The crew soon discovered that a vessel was ashore on the Margate Sands, and directly made for her. She proved to be the Spanish brig Samaritano of one hundred and seventy tons, bound from Antwerp to Santander, and laden with a valuable and miscellaneous cargo.

Her crew consisted of the captain, Modesto Crispo, and eleven men; it was during a violent squall of wind and snow that the vessel was driven on the Sands, at about half-past five in the morning; the crew attempted to get away from the vessel in the boats, but in vain, the oars were broken in the attempt, and the boats stove in.

The lugger Eclipse, as she was running for the brig, spoke a Whitstable fishing-smack, and borrowed two of her men and her boat. They boarded the brig as the tide went down, and hoped to be able to get her off the Sands at the next high water. For this purpose, six Margate boatmen and the two Whitstable men were left on board.

But with the rising tide, the gale came on again in all its fury, and the boatmen had speedily to give up every hope of saving the vessel. They hoisted their boat on board to prevent her being swamped by the seas which were breaking heavily, and all hands began to feel that it was becoming a question, not of saving the vessel, but of saving their own lives. The sea rushed furiously over the wreck, lifting her, and then letting her fall with crushing violence upon the sands. Her timbers did not long withstand this trial of their strength; a hole was quickly knocked in her side, she filled with water, and settled down upon the sand.

The waves began now to break with great force over the deck; the lugger's boat was speedily knocked to pieces and swept overboard; the hatches were forced up, and some of the cargo which floated on the deck was at once washed away. The brig began to roll and labour fearfully, as wave after wave broke against her, with a force that shook her from stem to stern and threatened to throw her bodily upon her broadside; the men, fearing this, cut the weather-rigging of the main mast, and the mast soon broke off short with a great crash, and went over the side.

All hands now took refuge in the fore-rigging; nineteen men had then no other hope between them and a terrible death than the few shrouds of the shaking mast.

The wind beat against the poor fellows with hurricane force; each wave that broke against the vessel sprang up in columns of foam and drenched them to the skin; the air was full of spray and sleet, which froze upon them as it fell.

The Margate boatmen were there, but the Margate lugger could not have lived five minutes in the sea that surrounded the vessel; the Whitstable smack would have been wrecked at once, if she had attempted to get near the wreck, and thus the poor fellows, caught in a trap, had to be left by their comrades to their fate, their only chance of escape being the possibility of a life-boat coming to their rescue, and this before their frail support should yield to the rush of wind and sea.

And resting in this hope they waited hour after hour, clinging to the shrouds of the tottering mast; but no help came, until one and all despaired of life.

In the meanwhile, news of the wreck had spread like wildfire through Margate. In spite of the gale, and the blinding snow squalls, many of the inhabitants struggled to the cliff, and with spy-glasses tried to penetrate the scud, or to gain in the breaks of the storm some glimpses of the wreck.

As soon as the peril the crew of the brig were in was known, the smaller of the two Margate life-boats was manned and made to the rescue. As she sailed out into the storm, the seas broke over her and filled her; this her gallant crew heeded little at first, for they had every confidence in her powers to ride safely through any storm, that her air-tight compartments would prevent her from sinking; but to the astonishment of the men they found that the boat was rapidly losing her buoyancy, and fast becoming unmanageable; indeed she was filling with water, which came up to the men's waists. The air-tight boxes had evidently filled; and they remembered, too late, that the valves, with which each box is provided to let out any water that may leak in, had been left unscrewed in the excitement of starting. Their boat, with the air-tight compartments filled with water, virtually ceased to be a life-boat, and her crew had to struggle for their own safety. Although then within a quarter of a mile of the brig, there was no help for it, they could make no farther way against the storm; the boat was unmanageable, and the only chance of life left to the boatmen themselves, was to run her ashore on the nearest part of the coast. It was doubtful whether they would be able to succeed even in this; and it was not until they had battled for four hours with the sea and gale, that they were able to get ashore in Westgate Bay.

There the coastguard were ready to receive them, and did their best to revive the exhausted men. As soon as it was discovered at Margate that the first life-boat was disabled, the large life-boat, the Friend of all Nations, was got ready with every speed, and with much trouble dragged round to the lee side of the pier, where it was launched. Away she started, her brave crew doing all they could to battle with the gale, and force their way out to the wreck; but all their efforts were in vain; the tremendous wind was right against them; the sea completely overpowered them, and prevented their beating to windward; the tiller gave way, and after a hard struggle her crew had also to give up the attempt, and this life-boat in turn was driven ashore about one mile from the town. With both their life-boats wrecked, the Margate men almost gave up all hopes of saving the crew of the vessel and the men that were left on board; but this should not be the case until every possible effort had been made; but it was with small hope for the shipwrecked, and with much apprehension for the boats themselves, that the people watched two luggers—the Nelson and the Lively—undaunted by the fate of the life-boats, stagger out mid the sweeping seas to the rescue.

The fate of one lugger, the Nelson, was soon settled; a fearful squall of wind caught her before she had got many hundred yards clear of the pier; it swept her foremast out of her, and her crew had to make every possible effort to avoid being driven on the rocks, and there wrecked.

The Lively was more fortunate; she beat her way out to sea, but found so heavy a surf breaking over the Sands, that it was evidently impossible to cross them, or to get near the wreck.

The Margate people became full of despair, and many a bitter tear was shed for sympathy and for personal loss as they watched the wreck, and thought of the poor fellows perishing slowly before their eyes, apparently without any possibility of being saved.

A rumour spread among the crowd that the lieutenant of the coastguard had sent an express off to Ramsgate, for the Ramsgate steamer and life-boat; but this scarcely afforded any hope, as it was thought impossible that the steamer and life-boat could make their way round the North Foreland in the teeth of so tremendous a gale, or that, if they did so, it was supposed impossible that either the ship could hold together, or the crew live, exposed as they were in the rigging, during the time it would of necessity take the steamer and boat to get to them.

We now change the scene to Ramsgate.

From an early hour on the Monday morning, groups of boatmen assembled on the pier at Ramsgate; they were occasionally joined by some of the more hardy among the townsmen, or by a stray visitor, attracted by the wild scene that the storm presented.

The boatmen could faintly discern, in the intervals between the snow-squalls, a few vessels in the distance, running before the gale, and they were keenly on the watch for signals of distress, that they might hasten to the rescue.

But no such signal was given.