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Lawrence has a steamship channel four hundred and fifty feet wide and thirty feet deep from side to side. In the days when high insurance rates were established against the St. Lawrence route, there was practically not a lighthouse nor channel buoy from Tadousac to the Straits of Belle Isle.
About five o'clock in the afternoon of the 25th of June 1756, Capt. William Boys, from the quarter-deck of his ship the Royal Sovereign, then riding at anchor at the Nore, observed a snow on fire in the five-fathom channel, a little below the Spoil Buoy. He immediately sent his cutter to her assistance, but in spite of all efforts to save her she ran aground and burnt to the water's edge.
"And so you really have seen the great sea serpent?" said I, when the old man-of-war's man had shifted his quid once more, thus implying that he had finished. "Not a doubt of it, sir; and by the same token he was as long as from here to the Spit Buoy, and as broad as one of them circular forts out there."
The steward was ordered to jump on the buoy and cling to it, so as to guard the little ones and prevent their being thrown out. A signal having been again given with the lantern, the lifebuoy was drawn swiftly to land.
The only other one to notice the affair was Midshipman Willis, who simply states, "dropped from the Buoy and anchored in the Sound."
My! but she's blowin' great guns and little pistols!" Larry had his first sight of a rescue by means of the breeches buoy. The apparatus, including a small cannon or mortar, had been brought from the life-saving station on a wagon, pulled by the men along the beach. The first act was to dig a deep hole in the sand, some distance back from the surf.
"But, captain, tell us what really brought the old gentleman back," said one of the auditors. "Well, just think of that tight white hammock, the light weight of the shot, and the very hot weather think, too, how easily a fishing-cork is balanced in the water by a very small sinker, and lastly how confined air will buoy up anything and you have the whole secret of his coming back.
The next morning the Lilly cast off from the buoy to which she was moored, and, making sail, ran out to Spithead, where she again anchored. Bill thought he should now be fairly off to sea, but she had another week to remain there. There was the powder to take on board, and more provisions; then there were despatches from the Admiralty. At length Blue Peter was hoisted.
The captain had run out a hawser and made the end of it fast to a buoy at the far side of the fair-way. A donkey-engine on the steamer's deck was clanking vigorously, hauling in the hawser, swinging the head of the steamer round, a slow but deeply interesting manoeuvre. "Peter Walsh," said Priscilla, "is that you?" "It is, Miss," said Peter, "and it's proud and pleased I am to see you home again."
I DO like Thomson. . . . Tell Austin that the GREAT EASTERN has six masts and four funnels. When I get back I will make a little model of her for all the chicks and pay out cotton reels. . . . Here we are at 4.20 at Brest. We leave probably to-morrow morning. GREAT EASTERN. Here as I write we run our last course for the buoy at the St. Pierre shore end.
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