On the 21st, at four o'clock in the afternoon, the party reached
Maritimo, having been sixteen hours in the open boat, and the next
day they proceeded to Trepani, in Sicily. On the 24th, they arrived at
Palermo; the news of the sad event had already been conveyed thither
to Sir Sidney Smith, by a letter which had been written from Maritimo.
The Eagle, of 74 guns, was instantly ordered to the Esquerques, but
returned with the intelligence, that all who were left upon the wreck
had perished, with the exception of two men, who had been picked up on
a raft by some fishermen. They related that the poop had separated
about eleven o'clock on the morning after the launch left them, and
that they, together with ten others, clung to it, but all had either
been washed off or died except themselves. There were also two other
rafts, on one of which were three warrant officers, and on the other
Captain Raynsford and Lieutenants Swinburne and Salter; but it was
found impossible to disengage the rafts from the rigging to which they
were attached, and the unfortunate men all perished.

The existence of the Esquerques, as we have already stated, had been
doubted, but from Captain Raynsford's exclamation, previous to the
ship striking, we may infer that he himself was not sceptical on the
subject. From whatever cause this fine frigate may have been lost, the
gallantry, at least, and self-devotion of her commander, from the time
the vessel first struck, will rescue his memory from reproach.

There's a prayer and a tear o'er the lowliest grave;
But thousands lament o'er the fall of the brave;
And thou, whose rare valour and fate we bemoan,--
In the sufferings of others forgetting thy own,--
O'er thy dust, though no trophies nor columns we rear,
Though the storm was thy requiem, the wild wave thy bier;