[pg 42]
BLOWING UP OF THE ROYAL GEORGE.
At the time when the dreadful event which I have just related to you occurred, the Lark sloop, which brought the cargo of rum, was lying alongside of the Royal George; in going down, the main-yard of the Royal George caught the boom of the Lark, and they sank together, but this made the position of the Royal George much more upright in the water than it would otherwise have been. There she lay at the bottom of the sea, just as you have seen small vessels when left by the tide on a bank. Cowper, when he heard the sad tale, thus wrote
[pg 45]
"Her timbers yet are sound,