Hand-coloured. The outward-bound East Indiaman 'Halsewell' sprang a leak in the Channel during a night-time storm in January 1786, became unmanageable and was wrecked under cliffs on the Dorset coast. Many of the men on board - crew and passengers - escaped onto a ledge, though only about 70 survived the night until rescued by local people from above the following morning. However, most of the women passengers including the daughters of the captain, Richard Pierce, were unable to escape and he heroically remained with them rather than attempt to save himself. All drowned when the ship rapidlly broke up, although Pierce and those with him met their end in the ship's roundhouse rather than on the unsheltered open deck as shown in this melodramatic rendering which is from one of many sensational popular accounts of shipwrecks published at this period as small pamphlets, usually with a plate like this to illustrate them. Tegg published many. [PvdM 4/15]