s
if the men had tried to get out of the top of a chimney, with
nothing for their legs and feet to act upon. I threw the woman from
me, and just after that moment, the air that was between decks,
drafted out at the port-holes very swiftly. It was quite a huff of
wind, and it blew my hat off. The ship then sunk in a moment. I
tried to swim, but I could not, although I plunged as hard as I
could, both hands and feet. The sinking of the ship drew me down so:
indeed, I think I must have gone down within a yard as low as the
ship did. When the ship touched the bottom, the water boiled up a
great deal, and then I felt that I could swim, and began to rise.

"'When I was about half-way up to the top of the water, I put my
right hand on the head of a man who was nearly exhausted. He wore
long hair, as did many of the men at that time; he tried to grapple
me, and he put his four fingers into my right shoe, alongside the
outer edge of my foot. I succeeded in kicking my shoe off, and,
putting my hand on his shoulder, I shoved him away: I then rose to
the surface of the water.

"'At the time the ship was sinking, there was a barrel of tar on the
starboard side of her deck, and that had rolled to the larboard, and
staved as the ship went down, and when I rose to the top of the
water, the tar was floating like fat on the top of a boiler. I got
the tar about my hair and face: but I struck it away as well as I
could, and when my head came above water, I heard the cannon ashore
firing for distress. I looked about me, and at the distance of eight
or ten yards from me, I saw the main topsail halyard block above
water: the water was about thirteen fathoms deep, and at that time
the tide was coming in. I swam to the main topsail halyard block,
got on it, and sat upon it, and then I rode. The fore, main, and
mizen tops were all above water, as were a part of the bow-sprit,
and part of the ensign-staff, with the ensign upon it.

"'In going down, the mainyard of the "Royal George" caught the boom
of the rum-lighter, and sunk her; and there is no doubt that this
made the "Royal George" more upright in the water, when sunk, than
she otherwise would have been, as she did not lie much more on her
beam-ends than small vessels often do, when left dry on a bank of
mud.

"'When I got on the main topsail halyard block, I saw the admiral's
baker in the shrouds of the mizen-top-mast, and directly after that,
the woman, whom I had pulled out of the p