AND KINGSDOWNE.—Two large vessels went on the Goodwin Sands on the 18th De- cember. They were the barque Albert, of Bremen, 750 tons, bound thence to the East Indies, and the barque India, of Shields, 700 tons, bound to that port from Quebec, with a cargo of timber. The vessels got on the Sands, within a short distance of each other, before daybreak, while the wind was blowing strongly from the S.W. On the signals of distress being observed, the Ramsgate Harbour steam-tug Aid and Life-boat Bradford, and the North Deal, Kingsdowne, and Broadstairs Life- boats, promptly proceeded to the sands, and efforts were made to get the vessels off, but without success, on account of the very heavy surf running all day on the Goodwin.

On the tide flowing the India broke her back and sank, her crew of 16 men being however saved by the Ramsgate Life-boat, which transferred 6 of them to the Kings- downe Life-boat. The crew of 16 men of the other vessel were saved by the North Deal Life-boat, together with 5 Broadstairs men, who came out to the wreck, and un- fortunately lost their boat alongside. While the steamer Aid was towing out the Brad- ford Life-boat in the morning, the paddle- shaft of the starboard wheel broke, and the steamer had to return to the harbour, working her port engines and paddle- wheel ; but the Life-boat pursued her way to the Sands under sail. When the dis- abled steamer got into Ramsgate, her con- sort, the Vulcan, immediately got up steam, proceeded out, and falling in, on their return, with the Ramsgate and North Deal Life-boats, which had on board the ship- wrecked men, she took them in tow, and all were safely landed in Ramsgate Har- bour about five o'clock in the evening.

Thus 37 Shipwrecked persons were saved by the Life-boats from an inevitable death.

On this occasion the Kingsdowne Life- boat, while in search of the vessels in dis- tress, crossed and re-crossed the Goodwin Sands four times, and in such crossings the boat was repeatedly filled by the heavy surf. When the India was sighted, the anchor was let go, and the boat veered down to the wreck, again filling several times from the tremendous sea on. The weather during the whole of the time the Life-boats were out was most terrible, the wind blowing a heavy gale, and the sea at the Sands running mountains high.

The crew of the Kingsdowne boat started in the dark, with only such clothes on them as they could snatch up at the in- stant, and were nearly twelve consecutive hours wet to the skin and exposed to the fury of the gale, and had no other food than a few biscuits on board.