But the extreme difficulty and danger presented to the women and children in getting into the _Cambria_ seemed scarcely less imminent than that which they had previously encountered; for to prevent the boat from swamping or being stove against the side of the brig, while its passengers were disembarking, required no ordinary exercise of skill and perseverance on the part of the sailors, and of self-possession and effort on that of the females themselves. On coming alongside of the _Cambria_, Captain Cook very judiciously called first for the children, who were successively thrown or handed up from the boat. The women were then urged to avail themselves of every favourable heave of the sea by springing towards the many friendly arms that were extended from the vessel to receive them; and, notwithstanding the deplorable consequence of making a false step under such critical circumstances, not a single accident occurred to any individual belonging to the first boat. Indeed, the only one whose life appears to have been placed in extreme jeopardy alongside was one of the ladies, who, in attempting to spring from the boat, came short of the hand that was held out to her, and would certainly have perished, had she not most happily caught hold at the instant of a rope that happened to be hanging over the _Cambria's_ side, to which she clung for some moments, until she was dragged into the vessel. I have reason to know that the feelings of oppressive delight, gratitude, and praise experienced by the married officers and soldiers on being assured of the comparative safety of their wives and children, so entirely abstracted their minds from their own situation as to render them for a little while totally insensible either to the storm that beat upon them, or to the active and gathering volcano that threatened every instant to explode under their feet. It being impossible for the boats, after the first trip, to come alongside the _Kent_, a plan was adopted for lowering the women and children by ropes from the stern, by tying them two and two together. But from the heaving of the ship, and the extreme difficulty in dropping them at the instant the boat was underneath, many of the poor creatures were unavoidably plunged repeatedly under water; and much as humanity may rejoice that no woman was eventually lost by this process, yet it was as impossible to prevent, as it was deplorable to witness, the great sacrifice thus occasioned of the younger children--the same violent means which only reduced the parents to a state of exhaustion or insensibility, having entirely extinguished the vital spark in the feebler frames of the infants that were fastened to them. Amid the conflicting feelings and dispositions manifested by the numerous actors in this melancholy drama, many affecting proofs were elicited of parental and filial affection, or of disinterested friendship, that seemed to shed a momentary halo around the gloomy scene.