water, forcing itself in at every port, weighed the vessel down still more. She fell on her broadside, with her masts nearly flat on the water, and sank to the bottom immediately. “The officers, in their confusion, made no signal of distress, nor, indeed, could any assistance have availed if they had, after her lower-deck ports were in the water, which forced itself in at every port with fearful velocity.” In going down, the main-yard of the _Royal George_ caught the boom of the rum-lighter and sank her, drowning some of those on board. At this terrible moment there were nearly 1,200 persons(50) on board. Deducting the larger proportion of the watch on deck, about 230, who were mostly saved by running up the rigging, and afterwards taken off by the boats sent for their rescue, and, perhaps, seventy others who managed to scramble out of the ports, &c., the whole of the remainder perished. Admiral Kempenfelt, whose flag-ship it was, and who was then writing in his cabin, and had just before been shaved by the barber, went down with her. The first-captain tried to acquaint him that the ship was sinking, but the heeling over of the ship had so jammed the doors of the cabin that they could not be opened. One young man was saved, as the vessel filled, by the force of the water rushing upwards, and sweeping him bodily before it through a hatchway. In a few seconds, he found himself floating on the surface of the sea, where he was, later, picked up by a boat. A little child was almost miraculously preserved by a sheep, which swam some time, and with which he had doubtless been playing on deck. He held by the fleece till rescued by a gentleman in a wherry. His father and mother were both drowned, and the poor little fellow did not even know their names; all that he knew was that his own name was Jack. His preserver provided for him. [Illustration: THE WRECK OF THE “ROYAL GEORGE.”] One of the survivors,(51) who got through a porthole, looked back and saw the opening “as full of heads as it could cram, all trying to get out. I caught,” said he, “hold of the best bower-anchor, which was just above me, to prevent falling back again into the porthole, and seizing hold of a woman who was trying to get out of the same porthole, I dragged her out.” The same writer says that he saw “all the heads drop back again in at the porthole, for the ship had got so much on her larboard side _that the starboard portholes were as upright as if the men had tried to get out of the top of a __chimney, with nothing for their legs and feet to act upon_.” The sinking of the vessel drew him down to the bottom, but he was enabled afterwards to rise to the surface and swim to one of the great blocks of the ship which had floated off. At the time the ship was sinking, an open barrel of tar stood on deck. When he rose, it was floating on the water like fat, and he got into the middle of it, coming out as black as a negro minstrel!