IN the Wreck Returns presented by the Board of Trade every year to Parliament, it is recorded that, from the very nature of the circumstances, the largest number of lives saved from founderings and collisions in the seas of the British Isles, must always be accomplished by ships, ships' boats, and fishing-smacks.

It not unfrequently happens indeed, in such cases, that the first tidings a life-boat's crew receives of a disaster is the safe landing of the shipwrecked crew.

Occasionally the noble services of our fishing- smacks at sea, during stormy weather, in saving shipwrecked crews, are attended with considerable danger, as the following account clearly shows : — During the heavy gale that was experienced on our coast at the beginning of November last, the fishing smack Edwin, of Hull, Captain POUNDS, arrived at that port from the North Sea, having on board Captain W. GIBBONS and four seamen belonging to the schooner Mark Breed, of Whitstable.

The schooner was on a voyage from Seaham to Rochester, with a cargo of coal, when on Saturday morning she was overtaken off Spurn Point by the fearful gale which swept the North Sea on that day. On Saturday morning, 31st Oct., the vessel sprung a leak, and from that time until Monday morning, at 7 o'clock, the pumps were kept at work incessantly.

Finding that the water was gaming rapidly, Captain GIBBONS ordered signals of distress to be hoisted. A short time afterwards the Edmn hove in sight, and soon bore down upon the sinking vessel. As soon as the smack neared the schooner, Captain POUND lowered his boat, which was rowed to the schooner, and soon the crew were safely on board the smack. There was a very heavy sea on at the time, and it was at great risk to his own life and those of his crew that the shipwrecked seamen were saved. The vessel was fast settling down when the Edmn bore up for Hull.

On 3rd Nov., the fishing-smack Superior, Captain HERITAGE, of Hull, landed seven of the crew of the schooner Alpha, Captain ENGLISH, at that port. The Superior fell in with the Alpha on the Dogger Bank during the fearful gale of Sunday, and at much risk succeeded in saving the lives of the whole of the crew.

On the 4th Nov. last the fishing-smack Signal, of Hull, Captain JONES, landed the crew, five in number, of the Annie, of Whitby, at Hull. The Annie foundered on the Dogger Bank on Monday morning, and in the evening they were picked-up in their boat about 60 miles from land, by the Signal. They were in a very exhausted condition when taken on board the fishingsmack.

The crews of all these vessels were forwarded to their homes by the agent of the Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners' Society at Hull.

About the latter end of October last, a collier brig from Newcastle entered Havre harbour, with a strange passenger on board.

Twenty-one miles from land the sailors had discerned something floating on the waves.

They put out towards it, and rescued from a miserable death a Newfoundland dog, floating on a plank. The poor dog, the sole survivor, probably, of some unfortunate vessel which went down at sea with all on board, could give no particulars of the fatal foundering, beyond such as his own preservation might convey to those who might recognise him as the favourite of some shipcaptain.

But who will tell the story of the vessel that went down in the mid-channel and left this Newfoundland dog its sole survivor ? About the same period, there saifed from the Isle of Portland a schooner, of 150 tons, named the Richard Pearce, laden with stone for Dublin. Her master was one THOMAS Cox, and her crew consisted of six men, together with a man and woman who were passengers. She had only been a day at sea when she encountered one of the late gales. The vessel was unseaworthy; the cargo so heavy that it was impossible to lighten her. In a few hours it was obvious that, unless the gale abated, she must go down. Its violence increased. In the midst of it the captain and crew felt that their omy hope was in their boat. In endeavouring to get her out, they knocked three holes in her bottom. " These we stopped," writes THOMAS Cox, " as well as we could, and we all got into her, seven men and one woman. The sea was running mountains high. The vessel foundered about a quarter of an hour after we left her, and in our perilous position we pulled and bailed, every wave threatening our destruction." This was at 2 o'clock in the afternoon.

The crew of the Richard Pearce pulled towards the coast, which they knew must be towards the north. The wind fiom the S.W., and probably the tide also, favoured them. But in a boat only 16 feet Jong, with three holes in her bottom, without a sail, and twenty miles from land, only consider the position of these nine castaways! It was, indeed, as THOMAS Cox goes on to describe it, "a merciful interposition of Providence that saved their lives." About 9 o'clock at night, these poor creatures saw, as they believed, the reflection of a light.

They pulled towards it. Without knowing where they were or whither they were drifting, at about half-past 9 o'clock on that tempestuous night, they were all cast ashore on the top of a monster wave; their boat thrown upside down, and they themselves cast high and dry—where may the reader suppose? Why, high and dry upon the Esplanade of Sidmouth; one of the most flourishing little watering-places on the south-west coast, and in close proximity to the house in which our beloved QUEEN was nurtured, and in which her royal father died.

But, perhaps, the most remarkable part of the story remains to be told. First of all, the Esplanade at Sidmouth, on which these shipwrecked mariners were cast, is not above a mile long. At one extremity of it is a range of rocks, called the Chit Rocks, on which, if the boat had chanced to strike, every creature must have been lost. At the other extremity is a range of cliffs—so high, so bold, so rugged, and with such a shore, that had the boat struck there the miserable fate of those she contained was not less inevitable.

It was only by the accident of her being cast, by a monster wave, upon the Esplanade that every life was saved, as happily occurred.

" Fatigued and exhausted, we lay there some time, scarcely able to move," writes THOMAS Cox. At length a baker of the town heard the cries of the boat's crew, and, like a good Samaritan, led them to the nearest hostelry, where he obtained them food and beds. No sooner were the facts known than the inhabitants rallied round the poor shipwrecked party and treated them with the utmost kindness. "All I can say," writes grateful THOMAS Cox, " is, that what I feel I cannot find language to utter.

Such kindness I shall never forget. It will live in my memory as long as my life shall last; and wherever I shall go in future, I shall speak with grateful feelings of the praiseworthy benevolence and noble hospitality of those who so kindly succoured us on that dreadful night." In commenting on the Wreck Statistics last published, the London Times made the following very appropriate remarks on the nature and peril of the Life-boat service, as distinguished from the assistance rendered to shipwrecked crews by other means :— " Though we believe that recklessness lies at the bottom of more than half of these deplorable disasters, we cannot overlook the . terrible power which the elements occasionally assert. Storms and tempests will sometimes try human skill and courage to the utmost; and it is at these critical periods that aid can be given to the endangered sailor. Life-boats are literally boats that save lives, and save them, too, under the most desperate circumstances. 327 lives saved by them were exactly those which, except for the life-boats, must inevitably have been lost. Every one of these persons was snatched from the jaws of death.

In a great many instances the saving of a shipwrecked crew by fishing-smacks, ships, and ships' boats, is by no means attended with danger. The sea may be perfectly smooth—it may be broad daylight—the ship's own boats may be available, and many vessels may be near at hand to lend assistance.

This accounts for the fact that most of the lives saved are saved by such agencies ; but whenever a life-boat puts out, the emergency is desperate: the wrecked crew have no other chance. Except for these boats their doom would be death; and to the services of these vessels during the past year we owe it that fewer than 700 lives were lost, instead of more than 1,000.

" We fear that it would be unsafe to build very confidently on the apparent evidence that these disasters are diminishing in fatality, or that the Joss of life grows less. In so far as shipwrecks are the result of tempests, their frequency would depend on causes not easily measured—the storms, like epidemics, may suddenly produce terrible casualties after long intervals of rest. During the last year or two, gales have occurred in rapid succession, and with unusual force, so that we are not surprised to find that though the lives lost in 1862 are below the average, the number of wrecks is above it. But may we congratulate ourselves on the efficiency of our machinery for saving life, and assume that the losses, in this respect at any rate, are declining ? We hope so; and, indeed, we are obviously justified in concluding that in proportion to the number and completeness of our lifeboat establishments lives must be saved from shipwreck. Still, these calculations, like those of railway accidents, are liable to derangement from disasters fortuitously heavy. A wreck, for instance, like that of the Royal Charter, though counting for only a single accident in the Register, might double the tale of deaths for the year. In any case, however, our course is clear before us. We can see our duty without any difficulty. We must look to improvements in the practice of navigation for more than one half of the results which we desire to secure, while for the rest—for the succour and rescue of those helpless crews who do not owe their peril to any default of man—we cannot do better than support and encourage those life-boat establishments with which our coasts have been so benevolently provided."