heap of timber and rubbish; we made one signal before we struck; we burnt a blue-light; the steward held it in a bit of paper and burnt it all; he held it over the port side; this light was visible for three or four minutes; he got orders from the captain to do this before the vessel struck; no one was near me when I was washed away; she kept breaking up from aft, and I kept getting forward until at last I reached the chain plates of the fore-rigging; I was washed away with planks and broken timber upon a shelf of rock, but immediately on the sea receding I got up a bit higher out of reach of the back current; we saw no vessel; we could not stand off the land more than we were doing; I heard nothing said about the captain not wishing to get further off the land for fear of being driven to the northward; the captain could not stand off the land more than he did; he did all that he could to keep off the land so far as I can judge; I expected, when we squared away, that we were going into the entrance of the harbour; I did not hear anybody say this, but I thought from the squaring away that we were so; nobody said that they saw the North Head; there was no opening that I could see that would lead any one to believe that they were going into port; I only saw the light; I was not frightened of anything; I thought it was all right, and that we were going into harbour; this was my idea until the second mate gave the alarm; the part that struck first was the port bow; she struck the rocks below first, and then bumped heavily over them; the vessel herself could not have formed a breakwater for lowering boats to the leeward; besides, the boats went with the first sea; the sea did not break right over her, and even when the weather side broke up the lee side offered some shelter; there is no truth in the report that the long boat was launched, and that some of the passengers were put into it; I am sure there had been no drinking aboard; we had a glass of grog at 12 o'clock; the men were all very steady; they were good men, and many of them were working their passages out at a shilling a month, intending to stop in the country; when I got ashore I could see nothing, for the rain and darkness, and I could hear nothing but the roaring of the surf; I saw nobody besides myself anywhere; the first thing I saw in the morning was the dead bodies brought in by the sea, and carried out by the under tow; the ship was completely broken up, nothing remained but her fore yard; I could see no persons; I was about ten yards above the sea, and the spray came over me as the seas broke below; there was no hollow or anything; underneath me, on the lower ledge, you could go a long way in under the rock, but I liked to get higher up rather than to go in under there; I had on a blue shirt, a singlet, and drawers; I hove everything off--boots, trousers, and pea coat, when the first alarm was given; we saw the light only a few minutes before the vessel struck. The witness,