Two more voyages the sailor made with such hopes as these, and amid
a frequent interchange of books and letters with his brother at home.
Then, in February 1805, he set sail from Portsmouth, in command of
the "Abergavenny" East Indiaman, bound for India and China. Through
the incompetence of the pilot who was taking her out of the Channel,
the ship struck on the Shambles off the Bill of Portland, on February
5, 1805. "She struck," says Wordsworth, "at 5 p.m. Guns were fired
immediately, and were continued to be fired. She was gotten off the
rock at half-past seven, but had taken in so much water, in spite of
constant pumping, as to be water-logged. They had, however, hope
that she might still be run upon Weymouth sands, and with this view
continued pumping and baling till eleven, when she went down.... A
few minutes before the ship went down my brother was seen talking to
the first mate, with apparent cheerfulness; and he was standing on
the hen-coop, which is the point from which he could overlook the
whole ship, the moment she went down--dying, as he had lived, in the
very place and point where his duty stationed him."

"For myself," he continues elsewhere, "I feel that there is
something cut out of my life which cannot be restored. I never
thought of him but with hope and delight. We looked forward to the
time, not distant, as we thought, when he would settle near us--when
the task of his life would be over, and he would have nothing to do
but reap his reward. By that time I hoped also that the chief part
of my labours would be executed, and that I should be able to show
him that he had not placed a false confidence in me. I never wrote a
line without a thought of giving him pleasure; my writings, printed
and manuscript, were his delight, and one of the chief solaces of
his long voyages. But let me stop. I will not be cast down: were it
only for his sake I will not be dejected. I have much yet to do, and