tide then running to the eastward. In this situation she continued, beating heavily, for three hours, during which time many heavy stores were thrown overboard, and the pumps kept incessantly at work, until they became choaked and useless. The mizen-mast having fallen, the main-mast was then cut away, and the ship at length drifted over the bank into seventeen fathoms water. Night now approaching, an anchor was let go; and the pumps being again rendered efficacious, the water in the hold was soon reduced from ten to four feet: owing, however, to the master having stoppered the cable when only one-third had run out, and the rudder having been knocked away, she again struck the shoal about 10 p.m., and with such violence as to convince every one on board that she could not long hold together. At this awful juncture, a fishing-smack approached; and Rear-Admiral Totty, Mr. John Clyde (purser), four young midshipmen, and one boat’s crew, succeeded in reaching her. During the night, four other boats were cut adrift with people in them, the whole of whom had the good fortune to get on board a merchant brig to leeward. On the following morning, at day-light, the flag of the commander-in-chief in Yarmouth Roads was seen; but, although a cutter had answered the first guns fired as signals of distress, and immediately stood for that anchorage, nothing could be discovered coming towards the Knowl. At 7 a.m., the Invincible once more drifted into deep water, and immediately began to sink head foremost. Lieutenants Tucker and Quash, two master’s-mates, the boatswain, and a few seamen, then got into the launch, the only remaining serviceable boat, and were the happy means of saving nearly 120 persons: the total number of officers and men saved amounted to 195; that of the unfortunate sufferers to about 490.
After this sad catastrophe. Lieutenant Tucker accompanied Rear-Admiral Totty to the Baltic and West Indies, in the Zealous 74, and their old ship, the Saturn. On the 28th May, 1802, he was appointed acting captain of the Excellent 74, bearing the broad pendant of Commodore (now Sir Robert) Stopford; and we subsequently find him commanding
