Ay, Reader, but the seeds of death had been sown that night. The boatmen returned to their homes, and the saved passengers and crew of the “Trident” were cared for by the authorities of the town, but one sad result was that several of those who had so nobly risked their lives to save others, never recovered from the effects of the sixteen hours of exposure to that pitiless storm.
Another and a glorious result was, that a hundred and twenty souls were snatched from a watery grave.
Chapter Twenty Three.
History of the Lifeboat.
We pause at this point in our story, good reader, to treat you to a little of what mankind is prone to consider “dry,” namely, a chapter of information and statistics. We dislike sailing under false colours, therefore we warn you at the outset of the nature of what is to follow.
And yet our subject ought not to be considered dry, for it is indissolubly connected with salt water, and if human hearts were suitably affected by the simple statement of facts, drops of salt water would frequently moisten these pages!
Please, do not skip. Multum in parvo shall be our motto.
Lionel Lukin, a coach-builder in London, was the inventor of the lifeboat. He took out a patent for it on the 2nd November, 1785, and wrote a pamphlet on lifeboats, entitled “The Invention, Principles, and Construction of Insubmergible Boats.” His boat was rendered buoyant by means of a projecting gunwale of cork, and hollow air-cases within it; one of these being at the head, the other at the stern. It was ballasted by means of a false iron keel. In these respects this boat possessed, in rudimentary form, the essentials of the lifeboat of the present day. A coble was converted into a lifeboat on these principles by Lukin, and launched at Bamborough, where, in the course of the first year, it was the means of saving many lives. This was the first lifeboat ever brought into action.