On, wildly onward, sped the craft, As she swiftly neared the verge; And the demon guards of the black gulf laughed, And chanted a hellish dirge; And the booming waters roared anew A wail for the dead and dying crew. As over the shelving rocks she broke And plunged in her turbulent grave, The slumbering Genius of Freedom woke, Baptized in Niagara’s wave, And sounded her warning tocsin far From Atlantic’s shore to polar star.” A careful computation from pages of prose, almost as flowery as the foregoing lines and oftentimes breaking into rhyme from a very luxuriousness of idea and rhythm, puts the lives aboard the _Caroline_ at about ninety-nine in number. Thirty-three were killed and missing; thirty-three were towed into the middle of the stream when the boat was fired, and with her went over the ledge; there were also thrilling cries from “the living souls” on board, plus “wails of the dying,” presumably thirty-three cries and thirty-three wails, all gliding down the resistless rapids to perish by “the double horror of a fate inevitable.” On the day following the cutting out five hundred men were told off to complete the work by driving the filibusters off the island, the three schooners, with boats and barges, being sufficient transport. “But what shall we do if a shot strikes our boat--we must either drown or go over the Falls,” was a query which sent Captain Drew off on another hazard. He pulled up stream in a four-oared gig, within pistol shot of the island, to see if the enemy’s field-piece was equal to hitting a boat which moved fast through the water. So far the casualties from the red-hot shot sent skipping along the Canadian shore were the death of young Smith of Hamilton, who, lying in a barn on some hay, had part of his thigh carried away and some ribs broken, and an old sailor named Millar who served Captain Luard’s guns, and had his leg taken off. Millar asked to see his leg, gave three cheers for the Queen, and died.