THE BRIG 'HOWARD'', TEIGNMOUTH, 1840.

On Monday the seventh of December, 1840, the brig, Howard, of Exeter,  with a cargo of timber from Miramichi,  anchored off Teignmouth, took on a pilot and waited for the night tide.   But a gale blew up and she parted from her anchors and came on shore on the beach near the public baths:

"At about half past 12  the inhabitants were roused by the report of a cannon, which proved to be Captain Manby's apparatus, that had been brought to the spot by Lieutenant O'Reilly of the coast guard, who, with his men, used every exertion to convey a line to the ill fated ship, which was now labouring very much and her crew, and the pilot, thirteen hands, were seen imploring for relief.  

"After several attempts a shot from the apparatus took a line across the ship, by which the crew hauled a hawser on board from the shore....The pilot with great difficulty and danger reached the shore much exhausted; another man that followed him met a watery grave, the rope having broken.

"At this juncture,  Mr. William Warren with great promptitude constructed a grummet or sort of rope cradle. which was hauled on board, and by which nine more of the crew were safely landed....Two men were still missing, but as they did not make their appearance it was thought they were lost.  It was now half-past five a.m., Tuesday morning, and all having been done that human aid could accomplish the vessel was left to her fate.

"The gale now moderated and she held together, and on the falling of the tide the two misssing men were discovered on board safe.  Thus twelve of the thirteen were providentally saved."

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Captain George William Manby was still alive in 1840.  He died in 1854.  Between 1808,  the first such rescue, and 1842 over 1000 lives had been saved by his mortars (rockets came later).  

A gallant rescue effort but the two deckhands who went below and spent the night in their bunks (?) rather took the gilt off the gingerbread.   Providence gets it wrong sometimes! 

Mr. William Warren's grummet I take to be an improvised lifebuoy woven on the spot from rope and then hauled ashore ( through the waves ?)

Source: The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 12th December, 1840.