THE present year (1861) came in on our English north-eastern coast in storm and fury. For the two last days of the dying year a tempest had been brewing; and on New-Year's Day, when we quiet city folks were exchanging "com- pliments of the season", many anxious eyes were turned to seaward, and many an anxious heart grew sick as the wind rose, and rose, and still rose. Many vessels, southward-bound, put about, and had to run as far as Leith Roads for shelter. Soon after daybreak on the 1st of January, the coastguard men on the lookout at the Spanish Battery, Tynemouth, saw a vessel, deeply laden, with a flag of distress flying. She was struggling to get to the northward, but struggling in vain, and rapidly driving in upon the coast. The coastguard men followed her along the shore with the rocket apparatus, and, as they went on, the people of the villages turned out to join them; so that, ere long, each head- land had its anxious crowd, looking— pitying—trembling. It was a very sad sight to see. Some of the vessel's sails had been blown away, and she grew more and more unmanageable amid the terrible seas that broke around and over her. At length, abandoning the desperate effort to get to the northward, her crew, as the last chance of life, ran her for Whitley Sands, 5 miles north of Shields. She was so deeply laden, that she struck on a ridge of sunken rocks and was still three-quarters of a mile from the shore. It was impossible to reach her with rockets. Only one hope remained—the Life-boat! As fast as they could run through the snow, driving wind, and rain, life-boat men and fishermen made off for Cullercoats, where was stationed the Percy life-boat, belonging to the National Life-boat Institution. Six horses were fastened to her carriage, and down they came at a gallop to the sands. She was speedily manned—by a gallant crew of Culler- coats men, and Mr. Byrne of the Coast- guard volunteering as bowman—pulled out as for their own lives; and not a moment too soon did they reach the ship, which was now broadside on to the sea, her crew in the rigging, and the waves breaking over her half-mast high.

Cleverly and deftly was the life-boat laid alongside; the vessel was grappled, and the boat held to her by a strong rope. Instantly the crew made towards their deliverers; but even as they left the rigging, one man was much cut in the face and head, the mate had his shoulder dislocated, and three of them were swept into the sea. The life-boat was handled with a glorious skill; two of the crew were at once picked up, and as the third man went down to his death, a strong hand seized him, with a grasp of iron, by his hair, and dragged him up to life. Two other men were got into the boat.

Did any remain on board the ship? Yes: how overlooked, how so left to die, we know not—but the little cabin-boy remained. The boy's cry for help grew very pitiful: for some time he dare not venture out of the weather- rigging : at last he did so, and was seen in the lee shrouds: "he had got wounded in the head, and was covered with blood". One of the life-boat's crew has since said that every face round him grew white and sick, and tears came from eyes little used to shed them— "They clenched their teeth, and with their own lives in their hands", dashed in their boat to save him. The sea beat her back. They dashed in again, to be swept back once more. But the vessel began to part, and the unstepped masts must fall, and would crush the life-boat if she stayed one minute longer in her then position. Then, sacrificing one life to save many, a brave man gave the order, in a hoarse broken voice, to "cut the rope". In an instant she was swept away under the vessel's stern—• not a second too soon, for at once the mainmast fell, with an awful crush, on the very spot she had just left, and the vessel immediately broke up..