at the entrance of the harbour. As the weather still continued too
boisterous to trust the brig with safety on a lee shore, her commander
determined to return to Guernsey, and offered his prisoners the
alternative of returning with him, or remaining with their countrymen
at Chaussey. As they all chose to remain, they were promptly landed,
and furnished with a boat and a week's supply of provisions, in
addition to what had already been left for the use of the inhabitants.
To enable his prisoners to land with greater security at Granville,
Lieutenant Thomas read aloud and sealed in their presence a letter,
addressed by Sir James Saumarez to the Commissary of Marine at that
port, containing an explanation of his reasons for liberating these
Frenchmen,--with his hopes that the French authorities would act in
the same manner towards any English who might fall into their
hands,--and entrusted it to one of them, with another letter from
himself, in which he stated how he had been prevented from conveying
them to Granville in his own vessel, and begged that any English
prisoners who chanced to be at that place might be sent to one of the
Channel Islands. The sequel will show in what manner this courtesy and
generosity were repaid by the French government.

At six, A.M., December 30th, all was in readiness for the Grappler to
leave the harbour. The anchor was up, and the vessel was riding
between wind and tide, with a hawser made fast to the rocks.
Unfortunately, the hawser either broke or slipped while they were in
the act of close reefing the topsails, and the brig cast to port. She
drifted about three or four hundred yards, and struck at last on a
half-tide rock, from which all their efforts were unavailing to haul
her off again, and at low water she bilged, and parted in two abreast
the chess tree.