Page:Loss of the Comet steam-boat on her passage from Inverness to Glasgow, on Friday the 21st October, 1825.pdf/12

 among all classes; and the effects were deposited, under official cognizance in places of safety in the village, from which they were afterwards removed to Greenock, to await the claims of those interested, who were requested by advertisement, to come forward. The property amounted to many waggon loads. Only one act of depredation was detected, and that was committed by strangers, who carried a trunk into the fields, and plundered it of some wearing apparel.

At the moment the fatal accident took place, such of the passengers as were awake were in high spirits, narrating and listening to diverting tales. When the concussion took place, he, with others, instantly rushed upon deck, to learn the cause. In the panic that ensued, he, in obedience to the captain’s orders to all on board repaired aft. He was an excellent swimmer, and calculated upon that resource in the last extremity. While standing on the deck, holding by a rope, he was seized round the arm with a convulsive grasp by a person behind him, lamenting their fate. In his perilous situation, he endeavoured to shake the person off, exclaiming, “Let me go;” when, turning round to disentangle himself, he perceived that the person who had seized hold of him was Mrs Sutherland. His