Even these were gradually diminished in number, some giving out from
exhaustion, and others anticipating fate, by drowning themselves.
When day dawned, on the following morning, only about thirty persons
were left alive, and these were almost exhausted. The sea was making a
clean breach into the forecastle, the deck of which was rapidly breaking
up. Parents and children, husbands and wives, were seen floating around
the vessel, many in an embrace, which even the ocean's power could not
sunder. The few who remained alive could only look up to heaven for a
hope of safety. Soon after daylight, the vessel totally disappeared, and
out of four hundred and twenty-three persons who had been on board the
vessel, only nine were saved by being washed on shore, and these were
nearly exhausted.
[Illustration: LOSS OF THE FRANCIS SPAIGHT.]
LOSS OF THE FRANCIS SPAIGHT.
On the morning of the 7th of January, 1848, the barque Francis Spaight,
lying in Table Bay, at the Cape of Good Hope, parted her anchor, and in
attempting to beat out, grounded, broadside on the beach.
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