"Now was the time--nothing being left alive upon the transport--for
my father to tell of the sloop he'd seen driving upon the Manacles.
And when he got a hearing, though the most were set upon salvage,
and believed a wreck in the hand, so to say, to be worth half a dozen
they couldn't see, a good few volunteered to start off with him and
have a look. They crossed Lowland Point; no ship to be seen on the
Manacles, nor anywhere upon the sea. One or two was for calling my
father a liar. 'Wait till we come to Dean Point,' said he.
Sure enough, on the far side of Dean Point, they found the sloop's
mainmast washing about with half a dozen men lashed to it--men
in red jackets--every mother's son drowned and staring; and a little
farther on, just under the Dean, three or four bodies cast up on the
shore, one of them a small drummer-boy, side-drum and all; and, near
by, part of a ship's gig, with 'H.M.S. _Primrose_' cut on the
stern-board. From this point on, the shore was littered thick with
wreckage and dead bodies--the most of them Marines in uniform; and in
Godrevy Cove, in particular, a heap of furniture from the captain's
cabin, and amongst it a water-tight box, not much damaged, and full
of papers; by which, when it came to be examined next day, the wreck
was easily made out to be the _Primrose_, of eighteen guns, outward
bound from Portsmouth, with a fleet of transports for the Spanish
War--thirty sail, I've heard, but I've never heard what became of
them. Being handled by merchant skippers, no doubt they rode out the
gale and reached the Tagus safe and sound. Not but what the captain
of the _Primrose_ (Mein was his name) did quite right to try and
club-haul his vessel when he found himself under the land: only he
never ought to have got there if he took proper soundings. But it's
easy talking.

"The _Primrose_, sir, was a handsome vessel--for her size, one of the