After one or two unsuccessful attempts to place the little frail bark fairly upon the surface of the water, the command was at length given to unhook; the tackle at the stern was, in consequence, immediately cleared; but the ropes at the bow having got foul, the sailor found it impossible to obey the order. In vain was the axe applied to the entangled tackle; the moment was inconceivably critical, as the boat, which necessarily followed the motion of the ship, was gradually rising out of the water, and must, in another instant, have been hanging perpendicularly by the bow, and its helpless passengers launched into the deep, had not a most providential wave suddenly struck and lifted up the stern, so as to enable the seamen to disengage the tackle. The boat being thus dexterously cleared from the ship, was seen after a while from the poop, battling with the billows,--now raised, in its progress to the brig, like a speck on their summit, and then disappearing for several seconds, as if engulfed "in the horrid vale" between them.[5] The _Cambria_ having prudently lain to at some distance from the _Kent_, lest she should be involved in her explosion, or exposed to the fire from her guns, which, being all shotted, afterwards went off as the flames successively reached them, the men had a considerable way to row; and the success of this first experiment seeming to be the measure of our future hopes, the movements of this precious boat--incalculably precious, without doubt, to the agonized husbands and fathers immediately connected with it--were watched with intense anxiety by all on board. The better to balance the boat in the raging sea through which it had to pass, and to enable the seamen to ply their oars, the women and children were stowed promiscuously under the seats, and consequently exposed to the risk of being drowned by the continual dashing of the spray over their heads, which so filled the boat during the passages that before their arrival at the brig the poor females were sitting up to the waist in water, and their children kept with the greatest difficulty above it. However, in the course of twenty minutes the little cutter was seen alongside the ark of refuge; and the first human being that happened to be admitted, out of the vast assemblage that ultimately found shelter there, was the infant son of Major MacGregor, a child of only a few weeks old, who was caught from his mother's arms and lifted into the brig by Mr. Thomson, the fourth mate of the _Kent_, the officer who had been ordered to take charge of the ladies' boat.[6]