In the case of the English ship _Barrett_, which was wrecked in mid-Atlantic in January, 1821, the method of choosing the man who should die to serve as food was sufficiently novel and ingenious to merit attention. She was a much larger vessel than the _Peggy_, with a crew of sixteen, and had sailed from St. John, New Brunswick, in command of Captain Faragar, with a cargo of timber for Liverpool. Heavy gales blew her canvas away and strained her hull until it filled with water. Rations were reduced to two ounces of bread and a pint of water a day until this was almost gone. Then a sail was descried, and a brig bowled down to pass within hail, the master promising to send aboard what provisions he could spare. Then the wind chopped around to the westward, and, precisely as had happened to the sloop _Peggy_, the brig hauled her braces, sheeted her topsails home, and went driving away on her course. Mr. MacCloud, the mate of the _Barrett_, was a hardy young Scot with the endurance of iron and the soul of a hero. Day after day the ship wallowed in the wicked winter weather of the Western Ocean, and only the timber in the flooded hold kept her afloat. Cold and hunger laid the crew low until only the mate and three men were able to stand a watch on deck; but he kept a little canvas on her and tended the tiller and somehow jammed her along until they had sailed six hundred miles toward the Irish coast. Every eatable was consumed: candles, oil--all were gone, and they passed the long, dreary, stormy nights of sixteen and seventeen hours in utter darkness, huddled together in the steerage, imploring the Almighty to help them, yet feeling reckless of existence. Such was their condition about the middle of January, and no one but the mate paid the slightest attention to the vessel. Captain Faragar succumbed to the strain, and died with a farewell message to his wife and children. The time came at length when one of the sailors, more brutalized than the rest, broke out with the words: “Here we are, sixteen of us, perishing for food, and what prospect is there before us? Wouldn’t it be better--” He hesitated, while his companions held their breath and comprehended what was in his mind. “Damn all ceremony!” was the conclusion which they expected and yet dreaded to hear. “One man must die that the rest may live, and that’s the bloody truth of it.”