In the year 1825 Sir William, and the crews under him, rescued eighty-seven persons, sixty-two of these from the steamer _City of Glasgow_; eleven from the _Leopard_ brig; and nine from the _Fancy_ sloop. In the year 1827 they saved seventeen lives. In 1830, four different crews were rescued, forty-three lives being saved; and in 1832 no fewer than fifty lives were saved from a passenger-ship. The nature of the perils Sir William Hillary so nobly encountered, and the toils he shared, may be well illustrated by an account of the rescue of the crew of the _St. George_. On the 29th of November, 1830, the mail steamer _St. George_ struck on St. Mary's rock, not far from Douglas. The captain had no boats to which he could trust in so violent a sea; he therefore cut away the mainmast, and endeavoured to construct a raft from its wreck, together with the spars which they had on board; but the seas proved too heavy for him to be able to do so, and he signalled his distress to the shore. Sir William Hillary and a crew of twelve men at once manned the life-boat, and proceeded in the direction of the wreck; they found the steamer hard upon the rock, and surrounded by such a raging boil of surf that any attempt to rescue the unfortunate passengers and crew seemed almost impossible; nevertheless they were not the men to leave their fellow-creatures to perish without making an effort for their safety, at whatever risk that effort must be made; they therefore let the boat rush before the gale into the heart of the surf; here she was completely at the mercy of the wild and broken waves--her rudder was torn off, oar after oar was broken, until scarcely half the number were left--some of the air-tight compartments were strained and filled with water, and rendered useless, and to add to the dismay of the crew, one of the tremendous seas which rushed over the boat washed Sir William and three men overboard; it was only after the greatest difficulty that they were recovered, and, happily, without being much hurt; the life-boat was then hurled by the waves between the steamer and the rock, here the broken mainmast and other wreckage were being driven violently by the surf in all directions, so that the life-boat was in a very whirlpool of danger.