The lifeboatmen say that when he did reach the deck he declared 'that if that was what they called coming hoff in a lifeboat from Deal beach, he wouldn't do it again—no, not for hall the money in the Bank of England!'
The captain now hesitated to slip his ship, lest she might pay off on the wrong tack and come ashore; but as the vessel was steadily drifting and the sea terrific, the lifeboat being now and then hoisted up to her foreyard, while mountainous seas wallowed over both the lifeboat and the vessel, the Deal lifeboatmen said, 'If you don't slip her, we will. There's death right astern for all of us if you delay.'
Then the captain himself took the helm, the rudder-head being twisted, and the spirit and energy of the Deal men infused new life into the wearied crew, and all hands worked together with a will.
They loosed the fore-topsail and they set the foretopmast staysail. Tom Adams went or waded forwards, holding on carefully, with a lantern, and he watched by the dim light till the fore-topmast staysail bellied out with a flap like thunder on the right side, and then he shouted down the wind, 'Hard up, captain! Hard a-port!' At the same instant Roberts shouted, 'Slip the cable! Let go all!' And just within the very jaws of the breakers, the ship's head payed away to the southward, and she escaped—saved at the last minute, and safe to the open sea.
When safe away and running before the gale, the Deal men strapped the rudder-head with ropes, straining them tight with a tackle, and then wedged the ropes tighter and tighter still, making the rudder head thoroughly safe.
And then, though only very poorly and miserably supplied with food—for they only had dry biscuits till they reached port—they manned the pumps with the worn-out crew, and brought the ship safe to Cowes.
But for the existence of a lifeboat at North Deal the ship would have been wrecked that night on the stormy beach of Deal, and, in all probability, her crew would also have perished.
It is pleasant to record the unselfish heroism of the Deal lifeboatmen, who on this occasion were the means of saving both valuable property and precious human lives.