iven,
whether an island or the main, whether inhabited or not inhabited; and
as the rage of the wind was still great, though rather less than at
first, we could not so much as hope to have the ship hold many minutes
without breaking in pieces, unless the winds by a kind of miracle should
turn immediately about. In a word, we sat looking one upon another, and
expecting death every moment, and every man acting accordingly, as
preparing for another world, for there was little or nothing more for us
to do in this; that which was our present comfort, and all the comfort
we had, was, that, contrary to our expectation, the ship did not break
yet, and that the master said the wind began to abate.

Now though we thought that the wind did a little abate, yet the ship
having thus struck upon the sand, and sticking too fast for us to expect
her getting off, we were in a dreadful condition indeed, and had nothing
to do but to think of saving our lives as well as we could. We had a
boat at our stern, just before the storm; but she was first staved by
dashing against the ship's rudder, and in the next place she broke away,
and either sunk or was driven off to sea; so there was no hope from her.
We had another boat on board, but how to get her off into the sea was a
doubtful thing; however, there was no room to debate, for we fancied the
ship would break in pieces every minute, and some told us she was
actually broken already.

In this distress, the mate of our vessel lays hold of the boat, and with
the help of the rest of the men they got her slung over the ship's side,
and getting all into her, let go, and committed ourselves, being eleven
in number, to God's mercy and the wild sea; for though the storm was
abated considerably, yet the sea went dreadful high upon the shore, and
might well be called _den wild zee_, as the Dutch call the sea in
a storm.

And now our case was very dismal indeed; for we all saw plainly, that
the sea went so high, that the boat could not live, and that we should
be inevitably drowned. As to making sail, we had none, nor, if we had,
could we have done any thing with it; so we worked at the oar towards
the land, though with heavy hearts, like men going to execution; for we
all knew, that when the boat came nearer the shore, she would be dashed
into a thousand pieces by the breach of the sea. However, we committed
our souls to God in the most earnest manner; and the wind driving us
towards the shore, we h