soon after to come to an anchor outside of St. John’s harbour. We were under great apprehensions for the cutter’s safety, as she had no grapnel, and lest she should be driven out to sea; but at day-light we perceived her and the schooner entering the harbour; the cutter, as we afterwards learned, having had the good fortune to fall in with a fishingvessel, to which she made fast during the night.
“The ladies, Colonel Cooke, Captain Thomas, and myself, conducted by Mr. Lilly (a planter resident at Island Cove) in the jolly-boat, having left the schooner when she anchored, notwithstanding the badness, as well as extreme darkness of the night, reached the shore about midnight. We wandered for some time abqut the streets, there being no house open at that late hour; but were at length admitted into a small tenement, where we passed the remainder of the night on chairs, there being but one miserable bed for the ladies. Early on the following day, our circumstances being made known, hundreds of people crowded down to the landing-place: nothing could exceed their surprise on seeing the boats that had carried 29 persons such a distance over a boisterous sea; and when they beheld so many miserable objects, they could not conceal their emotions of pity and concern. I waited on Brigadier-General Skerrit, who commanded the garrison, and who immediately, upon being informed of our situation, ordered down a party of soldiers to take the people out of the boats, and with the utmost kindness and humanity directed beds and every necessary article to be prepared for the crew[1].”
Being anxious to return to England, Captain Fellowes engaged the cabin of a small vessel bound to Oporto; and on the llth July he embarked with Lieutenant-Colonel Cooke, Captain Thomas, and Mr. Bargus, leaving the Mate in charge of his late crew.
“During a voyage of 15 days we had a few difficulties to encounter, such as pumping continually, the vessel having sprung a leak in a gale of wind; and we were obliged to throw overboard a considerable part of her cargo. On the 26th July, we fell in with an American ship, the Bristol Trader, of New York. The owner, Mr. William Cowley, being told our distressed situation, and that we had been shipwrecked, immediately hove to, and, with a benevolence and humanity that will ever reflect the highest honor on his character, received us on board, and brought us safe to Bristol; where we had the happiness to arrive on the 3d August[2].
- ↑ The greatest circumspection was found necessary in administering nourishment to the men, who were so much frost-bitten as to require constant surgical assistance. Many of them lost their toes; and it was determined they should continue at St. John’s until the whole were in a fit state to be removed to Halifax in a schooner hired by Captain Fellowes for that purpose.
- ↑ The Oporto trader was never heard of after Captain Fellowes and his
