'I always felt it my duty, after rescuing a drowning person, to go to the house of God at night, and return public thanks to the Almighty. Ministers in the town, and especially the Wesleyan ministers, have often returned thanks to God from the pulpit, on the following Sabbath. On the morning following the deliverance, I generally went to see the rescued person, and sought to improve the event by impressing their mind with the uncertainty of life and with the importance of being prepared for death. [Sidenote: JOHN'S STATEMENT.] 'In the following list I have given, as far as my memory and knowledge enabled me, a true and faithful account of the persons whom I have rescued from drowning. Extracts from newspapers, and letters from the parties themselves, and also from many who were eye-witnesses of their deliverance, have been freely used. There are several whom I have, at different times, saved from a watery grave, not included in this list, but as these events produced but little impression on my mind at the time of their occurrence, and as I am utterly unable to give either the names of the parties, or the time when I saved them, I can make no reliable mention of them at present, _though I hope_ to be able to do so at some future time. I sincerely believe, however, that if I had kept a strict account of all these deliverances, instead of having to record thirty-nine cases, I should have been able to have recorded upwards of fifty. I regret now that I did not keep such a record. Every now and then I meet with persons who greet me as their deliverer. Two young men have done so within the last four months. And very pleasant to my mind it is to meet a fellow creature whom I have been the means, in the hands of a wonder-working Providence, of saving from a watery grave. But all the cases mentioned in the following chapter, except William Earnshaw and Captain Clegg, have been signed by living witnesses, and most of them were reported in the local newspapers, at the time of their occurrence. Many of these persons are still living; some of them I see almost daily, and _they_ can speak for themselves. If I have made a mistake in spelling their names, or in relating the time when, or the circumstances under which, I saved them, I shall be glad to be corrected. And if I have offered an unkind reflection on any of my fellow creatures, or recorded a boastful sentence respecting what my fellow townsmen have been pleased to call my "deeds of daring," I hope to be forgiven by God, whose I am and whom I serve. Finally: as a large circle of my friends are anxious to have a true record of all the lives I have saved, I shall be highly pleased if any whom I have rescued, but whose names I have not recorded, will send me a few lines that may add to the interest of this little book, should a second edition be called for.' [Illustration: Signature of John Ellerthorpe] CHAPTER VII. HIS GALLANT AND HUMANE CONDUCT IN RESCUING THE DROWNING.