Sevena

A bright contrast was afforded by the noble conduct of the Mayor of Deal, one Thomas Powell, a slop-seller, who appealed successfully to these callous wretches’ hopes of gain by offering five shillings a head for every life saved. He had in the first instance entreated the Customs House officials to put out to save them, but without success, and the boats were refused; whereupon he and his mercenaries took them by force. More than two hundred of the shipwrecked were thus rescued; but even when brought ashore248 there was no shelter or food to be procured for them by appealing to officials, and the generous Powell was at the costs and charges of feeding, sheltering, and clothing the castaways. Further, he buried those who died, and paid the travelling expenses to Gravesend of the survivors. Defoe’s biting indictment came home to the inhabitants of Deal, and, after a considerable time for thinking it over, they grew angry and resentful about it, in proportion to the truth of the charges.

It has been shown that the Goodwins have from the earliest times greatly exercised the imaginations of all kinds of people, and that the bones of countless dead have found sepulture there, but it would scarce be supposed that any one would choose to be buried on the Goodwins. Yet there are at least two instances known of such a strange choice; one of them prominently recorded in the well-known—perhaps better known by repute than actually read—Evelyn’s “Diary.” John Evelyn, in the pages of that not very lightsome record, has an entry dated April 12th, 1705: “My brother-in-law Granville departed this life this morning, after a long, languishing illness, leaving a son by my sister, and two granddaughters. Our relation and friendship had been long and great. He was a man of excellent partes. He died in the eighty-fourth year of his age, and will’d his body to be wrapp’d in leade and carried downe to Greenwich, put on board a ship, and buried in the sea betweene Dover and Calais, on the Goo