Marsters, Roger. 2002. Sable Island’s Royal Wreck. Pages 54-59 in Shipwreck Treasures, Disaster and Discovery on Canada’s East Coast. Formac Publishing Company Limited.

Note: This is another account of the loss of the Frances in winter 1799. As in many other versions of this story, the author includes some detail about what happened to the Frances at Sable Island: “Her pilots, unable to distinguish between land and sea in the chaos whipped up by the gale, watched helplessly as she neared the island, struck offshore of Sable’s northeast bar and, held fast, was battered to pieces by the force of the storm. Passengers and crew were cast into the water and drowned; the prince’s library and precious equipment were strewn across the bottom of the sea”. However, there were no witnesses to this event, and there were no survivors. Thus the cause and manner of the loss of the Frances at Sable are unknown. The 1200 word text is nicely illustrated with four colour and black-&-white photographs, and four reproductions of paintings. Two of the latter are by J.F.W. DesBarres. One shows an encampment of shipwreck survivors on Sable; the other depicts a “wreckers den” on the island. DesBarres was a surveyor who made visits to the island in 1766-67. The colour photographs show components of a Lyle Gun presently on display at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax. The Lyle Gun, or lifesaving mortar, was a device used to send lines across the water, from the beach to ships floundering on Sable’s offshore bars.