London; and as the meal proceeded, he told us the story of the disaster
that had befallen him. It appeared that, like ourselves, they had been
becalmed on the previous night; and, like myself, Baker had retired at
midnight, without, however, having noticed the fall in the mercury that
had given us our first warning of the coming blow. On the top of this
oversight, the officer of the watch had made the fatal mistake of
supposing that the change, when it made itself apparent, meant nothing
more serious than the working up of a thunderstorm. He had therefore
contented himself with clewing up the royals and hauling down the
flying-jib, after which he had awaited the outburst with equanimity.
When, therefore, it came, they were utterly unprepared, and the ship was
caught aback with topgallantsails upon her, and hove down upon her
beam-ends. This was bad enough; but, to make matters worse, she was
loaded with iron, and, upon being laid over, the cargo shifted. The
watch below, of course, at once sprang on deck, and, under poor Baker's
supervision, everything that was possible was promptly done to get the
ship upon her feet again, but all to no purpose; and at length, finding
that the craft was shipping a great deal of water, the order was
reluctantly given to cut away the masts. This was easily accomplished
by cutting through the lanyards of the rigging to windward, when the
masts went by their own weight. Thus relieved, the ship partially
recovered herself; but she still had a heavy list to starboard, and was
floating so deep that the water constantly washed over the deck as far
as the lee coamings of the hatchways as she rolled. The pumps were then
manned; but after an hour's hard work it was found that the water was a
full foot deeper in the hold than it had been when the pumps were
started. It was therefore conjectured that the ship had suffered a very
serious strain when thrown upon her beam-ends, or that the violent
shifting of the cargo in her hold had started a butt. Still the pumps
were kept going, in the hope that the leak might suddenly stop, as leaks
have sometimes been known to do without any apparent reason.

Meanwhile, the sea had been rapidly getting up, and soon began to break
heavily over the dismasted ship, which was now rolling so violently
that, combined with her heavy list, it became almost impossible to move
about the deck, the leeward inclination of which soon grew so steep that
the men had