The Defence, the consort of the St. George, was cast away in the same
storm: out of her complement of 600, six was the small remnant of
survivors. This ship might probably have escaped, but her gallant
captain (Atkins) said, 'I will never desert my admiral in the hour of
danger and distress,' (p. 175.)

An instance of obedience and discipline, worthy of particular mention,
occurred before the St. George went down. A few men asked leave to
attempt to reach the shore in the yawl. Permission was at first
granted, but afterwards withdrawn, and the men returned to their posts
without a murmur. 'As if Providence had rewarded their implicit
obedience and reliance upon their officers,' says the narrative (p.
173), 'two of these men were of the few (seven) that were saved.'

The question now arises, to what are we to attribute the extraordinary
display of cool determination manifested by British seamen, in such
trials of nerve as are described in the following pages? The series of
shipwrecks extends from 1793 to 1847, a period of fifty-four years;
and tragic scenes are described, many of them far exceeding the
imaginary terrors of fiction, and all of them equal in horror to
anything that the Drama, Romance, or Poetry has attempted to
delineate.

We rise from the perusal with scarcely any other impression upon our
minds than that of wonder and admiration, at the extraordinary
self-command exercised when death was staring every man in the face.
Doubtless there are some instances of misbehaviour, and of lack of
firmness: it could not be otherwise. 'When the stormy wind ariseth,
and they are carried up to the heaven and down again to the deep,
their soul melteth because of their trouble. They reel to and fro, and