e satisfied, that
taking the gun, I went to the S.E. part of the island, to the same rocks
where I had been formerly drove away by the current, in which time the
weather being perfectly cleared up, to my great sorrow, I perceived the
wreck of a ship cast away upon those hidden rocks I found when I was out
with my boat; and which, by making a kind of an eddy, were the occasion
of my preservation.

Thus, _what is one man's safety is another's ruin_; for undoubtedly this
ship had been driven on them in the night, the wind blowing strong at
E.N.E. Had they perceived the island, as I now guessed they had not,
certainly, instead of firing there guns for help, they would rather have
ventured in their boat and saved themselves that way. I then thought,
that perhaps they had done so, upon seeing my fire, and were cast away
in the attempt: for I perceived no boat in the ship. But then I again
imagined, that, perhaps, they had another vessel in company, which, upon
signal, saved their lives, and took the boat up: or that the boat might
be driven into the main ocean, where these poor creatures might be in
the most miserable condition. But as all these conjectures were very
uncertain, I could do no more than commiserate there distress, and thank
God for delivering me, in particular, when so many perished in the
raging ocean.

When I considered seriously every thing concerning this wreck, and could
perceive no room to suppose any of them saved, I cannot explain, by any
possible force of words, what longings my soul felt on this occasion,
often breaking out in this manner: _O that there had been but two or
three, nay even one person saved, that we might have lived together,
conversed with, and comforted one another!_ and so much were my desires
moved, that when I repeated these words, _Oh! that there had been but
one!_ my hands would clench together, and my fingers press the palms of
my hands to close, that, had any soft thing been between, it would have
crushed it involuntarily, while my teeth would strike together, and set
against each other so strong that it required some time for me to
part them.

Till the last year of my being on this island, I never knew whether or
not any had been saved out of this ship. I had the affliction, some time
after, to see the corpse of a drowned boy come on shore, at the end of
the island which was next the shipwreck; there was nothing on him but a
seaman's waistcoat, a pair of opened kneed linen