By GEORGE F. SHEE, M.A., Secretary of the Institution.

I HOPE that no one who receives this issue of The Life-Boat will fail to read the story of Victor Rojas, well named " The Providence of the Shipwrecked," which comes at the end of Don Pedro de Novo y Colson's account of the Spanish Life-boat Service. I have never read a more wonderful and moving story of rescue from shipwreck than the history of this poor negro fisherman of Puerto Rico, who devoted to this "sublime task " of his choice an unselfish courage and an iron physique which fill one with amazement' and admiration.

Unexpected though it may seem, I was constantly reminded, as I read it, of the Institution's founder, Sir William Hillary. Could any two men be more dissimilar in all the circumstances of birth and life than these two men The one was a cultured and wealthy English gentleman, an equerry to the Royal House, a great traveller, a soldier, author and philanthropist. His forbears had fought and bled for their country.

He came of an ancient family which for generations had understood the meaning of chivalry and public service.

The other was a negro fisherman, " his only clothing a pair of shorts and a coarse calico shirt"a man of very humble station and even humbler race. In fact, when he was born, his race was still under the bondage of slavery—albeit a kindly slavery in many cases—even among the most cultured and humane peoples. It was not until two years after his birth that slavery was abolished throughout British possessions, and another generation had passed before this example had been followed by the rest of the civilised world. Sprung as Rojas was of this race, long devoted to servitude without the status of human beings, whence could have come his own noble devotion to one of the most unselfish and chivalrous of all services for one's fellow men? Utterly unlike as Sir William Hillary and Victor Rojas were in everything that could influence the course of their lives, yet through the story of the chief work of their lives runs a strange parallel.

" One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." It begins with the scene of their exploits both open and dangerous roadsteads—one Douglas Bay, where in one year twelve vessels were wrecked; for the other Arecibo Bay, in Puerto Rico, where " it was seldom that some vessel did not lose its anchors and drive on the rocks " when storms blew in from the north and north-west.

In actual achievement they rank together. Rojas by his own unaided efforts, with the help only of his rope and his iron bar, saved more than two hundred lives. Sir William Hillary, with the help of men inspired by his courage and example, so helped to save 305. In mere physical strength the feats of Rojas are, I imagine, unsurpassed and unsurpassable, but in their iron courage, in their devotion to their self-imposed task, it is impossible to choose between the two men. How can one choose between Rojas returning again and again " bruised and battered " to the wreck until the last man was rescued, and he himself collapsed " an exhausted and inert man," and Hillary, in his sixtieth year, carrying on the work of rescue with his chest crushed and six ribs broken ? But that is not all. Of these two men, and, so far as I know, of these two men alone in the long roll of the heroes of shipwreck, can it be said that by the fruitful combination of exceptional courage and their opportunities, they made the work of rescue, one might almost say, a regular and normal duty in their daily lives. In Mary Wordsworth's diary of her tour in the Isle of Man in 1828 there appears an entry, under July 2nd, 1828, " Sir William Hillary saved a boy's life to-day in the harbour." In that casual reference one seems to read the fact that the sight of Hillary saving life in Douglas Bay was one of the ordinary sights of the place.

So, too, " for many years the inhabitants of Arecibo, from their houses could see Victor Rojas sitting on a rock and watching the vessels in danger." In death, as in life, the strange parallel between these two men still holds. Each received, while he was still alive, the recognition which he deserved. Their greatness was understood, their work was honoured. Bach had felt as the chief inspiration of his life that noble pity which Shakespeare so finely ex- presses through the lips of Miranda.

" O! I have suffer'd With those that I saw suffer; a brave vessel, Who had, no doubt, some noble creatures in her, Dashed all to pieces. O! the cry did knock Against my very heart." And each had expressed that pity, not in beautiful words, but in heroic action. That pity for others which they showed, makes it all the more pitiful that each ended his life in suffering and sorrow.

Hillary, who had given so royally of his goods and of himself to great causes, died in poverty. It is believed that he was buried by night, and that no inscription was placed on his tomb because, as a bankrupt, his body might be seized by his creditors. Whether that story be true or not the fact that it was told shows the complete wreck of all his fortunes in his old age.

Victor Rojas's end was still more pitiful. Insulted on account- of his colour ; imprisoned for a trivial offence, he lost his reason and died in a mad- house.

I know no sadder example of the mutability of human fortune than that two men cast in so heroic a mould, devoted through their lives to so noble and unselfish a cause, and honoured by their fellows in a manner not unworthy of their achievements, should have ended - their days of honourable service in sorrow and unmerited misfortune..