by the weather rigging, and crying like children: I was surprised at
this, and felt proud to be above such weakness. While my superiors in
age and experience were sinking under apprehension, I was aware of our
danger; and saw very clearly, that if the frigate did not right
very shortly, it would be all over with us; for in spite of our
precautions, the water was increasing below. I swam back to the
quarter-deck, where the captain, who was as brave a man as ever trod a
plank, stood at the wheel with three of the best seamen; but such were
the rude shocks which the rudder received from the sea, that it was
with the utmost difficulty they could prevent themselves being thrown
over the ship's side. The lee quarter-deck guns were under water; but
it was proposed to throw them overboard; and as it was a matter of
life and death, we succeeded. Still she lay like a log, and would not
right, and settled down in a very alarming manner. The violence of
the hurricane was unabated, and the general feeling seemed be, "To
prayers!--to prayers!--all lost!"

The fore and main-masts still stood, supporting the weight of rigging
and wreck which hung to them, and which, like a powerful lever,
pressed the labouring ship down on her side. To disengage this
enormous top hamper, was to us an object more to be desired than
expected. Yet the case was desperate, and a desperate effort was to be
made, or in half an hour we should have been past praying for, except
by a Roman Catholic priest. The danger of sending a man aloft was so
imminent, that the captain would not order one on this service;
but calling the ship's company on the quarter-deck, pointed to
the impending wreck, and by signs and gestures, and hard bawling,
convinced them that unless the ship was immediately eased of her
burden, she must go down.

At this moment every wave seemed to make a deeper and more fatal
impression on her. She descended rapidly in the hollows of the sea,
and rose with dull and exhausted motion, as if she felt she could do
no more. She was worn out in the contest, and about to surrender,
like a noble and battered fortress, to the overwhelming power of her
enemies. The men seemed stupefied with the danger; and I have no
doubt, could they have got at the spirits, would have made themselves
drunk; and in that state, have met their inevitable fate. At every
lurch, the mainmast appeared as if making the most violent efforts
to disengage itself from the ship: the w