About a fortnight after he had received the letter announcing his wife’s resolution to join him, the weather became very stormy; and one morning, after breakfast, Allemar came to me with an expression of anxiety in his face, which he could not disguise: he seemed cold, and was endeavouring to check, by internal efforts, a certain trembling which was evident all over his frame. I asked him what was the matter. He replied, that a fleet of transports were in sight, and as it blew so violently, great fear was entertained by the pilots, with whom he had spoken, that many of them would be driven on shore; for in such weather, to make the port was impossible. I saw how things were, but I consoled my friend as much as I possibly could, by seeming to laugh at the idea of such danger. We hastened down to the beach, and there joined a group of navy officers, French pilots, fishermen, &c., whose remarks upon the vessels in the offing were such as to give rise to the most serious apprehensions in me for the safety of my friend’s wife, should she be so unfortunate as to have come on board one of the ships then struggling with an increasing tempest on a lee-shore. I pitied my friend from my heart, when I looked at his face and saw the workings of his feelings there so strongly depicted. He would not move from the beach the whole day, except occasionally to make inquiries in the town of St. Jean de Luz, as to the means of assistance to be rendered the vessels in case of necessity. By his field-glass he often fancied he saw the letters which marked the transport in which his Ellen sailed, and was as often set right by me. The vessel in which she took her passage, was marked A. Z. T., in letters of two feet in length; and the glass nearly dropped from my hand, when I perceived the identical letters on the quarter of a brig which had been all the morning nearly out of sight, but now approached the land. I could not tell my friend of what I saw; but he too soon confirmed my discovery, and clasping his hands in the most intense agony of mind, cried out, “It _is_ the ship--O God, protect her!” We hastened to the port, where my friend, half distracted, called on the boatmen to go out; but the answer was, that they did not think any of the ships would go aground; and also that the sea was too rough for boats. However, by the means of gold, he persuaded a couple of hardy and brave French fishermen to attempt the assistance of the ship, in which he believed his wife then to be. The boat in which they were to put off for the transport was as large as the Deal boats, and with Deal smugglers on board, might “live” through any sea: great hopes, therefore, were entertained that the fisherman would be successful.