There might have been a solemn satisfaction in pursuing the melancholy story, as derived from the verbal communications of different survivors; and it would have been interesting to have followed out the personal adventures of each individual sufferer. But we draw the veil over the scene of affliction, and let the personal narrative already given suffice as a specimen of the rest. This summary only we add of the relative extent of death and preservation; that whilst under the painful dispensation of a Providence-to us at once mysterious and solemnly awakening-above a hundred of our fellow-creatures were bereaved of their mortality by a simultaneons stroke, at the same time, under the good hand of the God of heaven, a remnant of one-and-twenty (two of them females were supported through the almost unequalled adventure, some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship and so it came to pass that these escaped all safe to land!"

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But why was the multitude of unconscious passengers led helplessly and unwillingly to try this fatal ordeal of human endurance and providential interference? Was it by stress of weather-by perplexing darkness-by bewildering fog-or by unavoidable accident, that the sad calamity was occsioned? Alas, no! There was nothing in the state of the wea ther, and little as to the state of the vessel-indifferent as that is reputed to have been-that can serve to palliate, much less to excuse, the fatal misadventure. The causes to which this melancholy catastrophe are, by popular report, ascribed, need not to be mentioned; and it would have been grateful to Christian feeling to have passed entirely over the painful investigation; but the interests of the public, and the future safety of our lives, demand that the truth, as far as determined by sufficient authority, should be strongly and plainly told. The only real or satisfactory authority, which at this time can be referred to, is the evidence brought before the coroner, at the inquests held at Beaumaris, with the impression produced on the minds of of the jury by that evidence, as declared in a letter handed by them to the coroner, after the delivery of their verdict. In that letter, the jury express "their firm conviction," on these two important points," that had the Rothsay Castle been a seaworthy vessel, and properly man ned, this awful calamity might have been averted ;" and "that the captain and mate" "have been proved, by the evidence brought before them, to have been in a state of intoxication!" It is painful for me to assist in censuring individuals already

CAFTAIN PRENTISS, ON CAPE BRETON ISLAND,

Preserving the lives of his companions who were overpowered by sleep, by reason of the intensity of the cold.-p. 122.

so severely censured-and who themselves have drank so deadly a draught of the same bitter cup in which so many participated. But the reservation of a fact, or facts, so strong. ly attested, would rather be blameable forbearance than christian charity.

On the first point stated in the letter of the jury, I make no remark, as legal investigations are understood to be pending, by which the correctness of the declaration may be refuted or established; but the mere statement of the latter particular suggests the melancholy and observable recollection, that three or four of the heaviest calamities of the nature of that under consideration, with which the coasts of this country have of late years been visited, have all been the results of this baneful vice of drunkenness! And whilst three or four hundred lives, from this cause alone, have been prematurely sacrificed in the wrecks of passage vessels, about our shores, I am not aware that the accumulated misery from explosions of steam-boilers, and all the accidents of the sea, within the same period, and in vessels of the class referred to, has by any means, equalled the same amount! How important then is it to underwriters, merchants, and shipowners, yea to all "who go down to the sea in ships, and all who do business in great waters," that their captains, before every other requisite of character, should be steady, sober men! And what an argument have we, for the promotion of religion among seamen, and for a preference in behalf of religious captains, in this single fact that the want of an effectual religious principle in the cases referred to, has not only been the occasion of such a fearful sacrifice of life, but has added to the perils of the sea, and to all the accidents to which steamapparatus is liable, almost a tenfold risk!

SUFFERINGS AND EXTRAORDINARY ADVEN

TURES OF FOUR RUSSIAN SAILORS,

Who were cast away on the Desert Island of East Spitzbergen, in 1743.

In the year 1743, Jeremiah Okladmkoff, a merchant of Me sen, in the province of Jugoria, and the government of

Archangel, fitted out a vessel carrying 14 men. She was destined for Spitzbergen, to be employed in the whale and seal fishery. For eight successive days after they had sailed, the wind was fair; but on the ninth it changed, so that instead of getting to the west of Spitzbergen, the usual place of rendevous for the Dutch ships, and those of other nations annually employed in the whale fisheries, they were driven eastward of those islands, and after some days they found themselves at a small distance from one of them, called East Spitzbergen.

Having approached the island within about three wersts, or two English miles, their vessel was suddenly surrounded by ice, and they found themselves in an extremely dangerous situation. In this alarming state a consultation was held. when the mate, Alexis Himkoff, declared, he recollected he had heard that some of the people of Mesen, having some time before, formed a resolution of wintering on this island. had accordingly carried from that town timber proper for building a hut, and had actually erected one at some distance from the shore.

This information induced the whole company to resolve on wintering there: if, as they hoped, the hut still existed; for they clearly perceived the imminent danger in which they were, and that they must inevitably perish if they continued in the ship. They, therefore, despatched four of the crew in search of the hut, or any other succor they could meet with. These were Alexis Himkoff, the mate, Iwan Himkoff, his godson, Stephen Scharapoff, and Feodor Weregin. As the shore on which they were to land was uninhabited, it was ne. cessary that they should make some provision for their expedition. They had almost two miles to travel over loose bridg es of ice, which being raised by the waves, and driven against each other by the wind, rendered the way equally difficult and dangerous. Prudence, therefore, forbade their loading themselves too much, lest being overburthened, they might sink between the pieces of ice and perish.

Having thus maturely considered the nature of their undertaking, they provided themselves with a musket, a powderhorn, containing twelve charges of powder, with as many balls; an axe, a small kettle, a bag with about twenty pounds of flour, a knife, a tinder-box and tinder, a bladder filled with tobacco, and every man his wooden pipe. Thus equipped these four sailors arrived on the island, little suspecting the misfortune that was about to befal them. The first thing they