Sunderland, Thetis

1796 wreck of English cargo vessel which stranded near Sunderland, after springing a leak en route from Klaipeda to London with timber; a wooden sailing vessel. Ten days later a great tragedy was enacted at the scene of the wreck. Captain Irvine was one of the twelve survivors of the shipwreck, and on this Thursday, 12 January, while he was assisting to salvage the cargo, a tier of the timber that had been stacked on the shore suddenly fell down upon him and imprisoned him by the thigh. Every endeavour was used to extricate him, but in vain, and before a surgeon could arrive to cut off the imprisoned member, the tide flowed in and ended all hopes of relief. In this terrible situation and under the most excruciating torture from the pressure upon his fractured limb the poor man remained, recommending his wife and children to the agonized spectators upon the strand, till the water reaching his head closed the afflicting scene. Captain Irvine left a wife and two children.