A Yacht Voyage Round England

by William Henry Giles Kingston

On further inquiries we found that nearly half the crew were as tipsy as their officers, and that they, with the cabin passengers who had remained aft, had been washed away. The people saved were steerage passengers, with the exception of one little boy, whose parents and friends had perished. However, the satisfaction of having been the means of saving the lives of these poor people was to us very great. We were of course greatly interested in the boy, Nat Harvey, who was about six years old. Poor little fellow, he had been so frightened that he was not fully aware of what had occurred, and did not appear fully to realise his loss. He seemed to think that his papa and mamma, and his Aunt Fanny and brother and sister, had gone off in a boat, and that he should see them again before long. He kept continually asking why they were not with us. When he heard that we were going to Saint Ives, he said that he hoped we should find them there. One of the women, with a kind heart, had taken him under her charge, and she sat on the cabin floor holding him in her arms with his head resting on her lap, every now and then speaking words of comfort, and endeavouring to get him to go to sleep. Papa inquired from the passengers and crew if they knew anything of his family, or where they were going. No one could say what part of the States Mr and Mrs Harvey, with three children and a young lady, who was sister either to Mr or Mrs Harvey—these were their names—had come from.

“We can’t turn the poor child adrift among strangers,” observed papa. “We must take him with us, and try to find out his friends.”

“Oh pray do!” Dick and I exclaimed. “I’ll look after him, and keep him out of mischief,” added Dick.

At last papa agreed that the best thing he could do for the child was to keep him on board, unless some kind person of influence at Saint Ives would take charge of him, and endeavour to find out his friends.

When speaking of the way the wreck occurred, papa said he was not surprised, as he had known an instance of the master of a vessel who with his mate had got drunk, and who had managed to take his vessel to the south of Jersey, while all the time he fancied that he was among the Scilly Islands.

The wind had fallen, and we feared that a calm would come on and keep us all night, which would have been a great trial to our poor passengers. It was therefore with much satisfaction that, the wind holding fair, we came in sight of the peninsula on which part of Saint Ives is situated, the remainder being on the mainland on the south side of Saint Ives Bay.

The water was smooth, the sky bright, and as papa looked at the town he exclaimed—“Why, I could almost fancy myself among the Greek islands, so exactly does the place, in its form and picturesque beauty, remind me of a Greek village.”

We stood on until, running under a battery which defends the town on the seaside, we anchored off a pier. The view was indeed highly picturesque. The town has an ancient appearance, the houses being built without any regard to order, many of them looking as if destined ere long to tumble down. Then our eyes wandered round the deep bay, on the surrounding broken ground, and the commanding cliffs, lighted up by the rays of the setting sun, which cast a dark shadow over the town itself on the western side.

Papa, hastening on shore, immediately applied to the authorities, who received the shipwrecked crew. The poor people expressed their gratitude for the service we had rendered them; and papa, to assist them still further, healed a subscription which was raised in the town for their relief.

We were very thankful when we got them all on shore. We looked out on entering the bay for the Dolphin; but among the various vessels which had brought-up there, she was not to be seen; and on inquiring on shore we could gain no tidings of her. Papa now thought, or hoped, as he had at first supposed, that she had got safely into Saint Mary’s.