st morsel of food had been consumed that morning; indeed,
for the two previous days we had taken barely enough to support life.

We looked about--we could not see the ship--we shouted at the top of our
voices--all was silent--we pulled on--again we shouted, or rather
shrieked out. A hail came from the eastward. It sounded loud and clear
compared to the hollow tones of our voices. Presently the dark hull and
wide-spreading sails of a ship broke on our sight through the veil of
falling snow, and directly afterwards we dropped alongside her.

She hailed us in German. I understood a little of the language, but La
Motte spoke it perfectly. Great indeed was our satisfaction to find
from this that she belonged to a friendly power. She appeared to have a
great number of passengers on board, for they crowded the sides and
gangway to look at us, and very miserable objects, I daresay, we
appeared.

Thinking probably that we were afraid of them, they told us that the
ship was the _Nieuwland_, belonging to Bremen, bound for Baltimore, in
the United States, and that the people we saw were Hanoverian emigrants.

When we told them in return that we were Englishmen escaping from a
French privateer which had captured us, they warmly pressed us to come
on board. When, however, we tried to get up to climb up the sides, we
found that we could scarcely stand on our legs, much less help ourselves
on deck. Three or four of our companions were so weak and ill that they
could not rise even from the bottom of the boat, and it was sad to see
them, as they lay on their backs, stretching out their hands for help to
those who were looking down on them over the ship's side.

Certainly we all must have presented a perfect picture of woe and
misery--half-frozen and famished--pale, haggard, shivering, with our
beards unshaven, and our hair hanging lank and wet over our faces, our
lips blue, our eyes bloodshot, our clothes dripping with moisture. Our
condition was bad enough to excite the compassion of any one.

The master and seamen of the ship and the emigrants evidently felt for
us, by the exclamations we heard them utter. They quickly fitted
slings, which were lowered to hoist us up, and the seamen came into the
boat to help us. One after the other we were conveyed on board, and at
once carried below. Not one of us could have stood, had it been to save
our lives.

I felt grateful for the looks of pity which were cast on us as we were