BROADSTAIRS.—The Life-boat Frances Forbes Barton was launched at 3 P.M. on the 12th January in a very rough sea, the wind blowing a whole gale from W.S.W.

veering to N.N.W., with rain squalls, a signal of distress being shown by the three-masted schooner Julia, of Lancaster, laden with slates from Antwerp for Exmouth. On reaching the vessel, which was five miles S.E.of the North Foreland, the master stated that a steam-tug in trying to speak him had come into collision with the schooner, carrying away the latter's bowsprit and jib-boom and damaging the bows. He asked that the anchors might be slipped and that the Life-boat might remain by until Ramsgate was reached. It was evidently impossible for the vessel, in her damaged condition, to proceed under sail, and the captain, acting on the advice of the Life-boatmen, secured the services of a steam-tug. Her anchors were slipped, after buoying them, and the vessel was towed, with the Lifeboat astern, in the direction of Ramsgate, it being intended to take the harbour at the tide, but the gale increased and it was considered imprudent to attempt to enter at night; therefore the tug continued to tow her throughout the night, in the teeth of the gale, the seas breaking over the Life-boat the whole of the time, until 9.30 in the morning, when the harbour was safely entered and the schooner made secure. She had a crew of five persons.

The Life-boatmen, who had been exposed for eighteen hours to the fury of the heaviest gale they had ever experienced, then proceeded on the return journey to her station, arriving there at 10.45 A.M.