Admiral Craigie writes from Dawlish (November 16th) a strik- ing
account of the bold seamanship of a boy of fourteen, carried out from Exmouth to the open sea by the tide. It was blowing hard from the north-east, so the little chap got his tiny mast and sail up, and ran along the coast outside the line of breakers in the hopes of finding a landing. Outside Dawlish he let go his little anchor, and lowered both mast and sail, hoping to be able to hold on out- side the breakers till the tide rose and calmed the sea, but this seemed impossible, and the Dawlish lifeboat did not dare brave the breakers, in which it could not have lived. So he again put up his mad and sail and raised his anchor, and with perfect precision steered for the only point at which it seemed possible he might shoot over the line of breakers. The boat rode over the first line, and then got becalmed for a moment between that and the second, and everybody expected the boat would broach to and the child be lost ; but he waited with perfect equanimity with the tiller in one hand and the sheet in the other, till the gale caught his sail again, and he skimmed over the second line of breakers and safely beached the boat. There must have been not only infinite pluck, but hereditary breeding in the boy of fourteen who could manage all that for himself with such equanimity. While we have such a class of boy-sailors our naval power can hardly be in danger of collapse.
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