ve marks of the most furious despair. They were obliged to hinder him
from attempting his own life. With loud cries he invoked death, which he
believed inevitable in the midst of perils so imminent. It is certain that
if Mr. Espiau, who had his long-boat already full, had not returned to take
from on board the frigate, the forty-six men, among whom, was Mr. Danglas,
he and all his companions would not, perhaps, have experienced a better
fate than the seventeen who were finally left on board the Medusa.

After the disappearance of the boats, the consternation was extreme: all
the terrors of thirst and famine arose before our imaginations, and we had
besides to contend with a perfidious element, which already covered the
half of our bodies: when recovered from their stupefaction, the sailors and
soldiers gave themselves up to despair; all saw inevitable destruction
before them, and gave vent in lamentations to the gloomy thoughts which
agitated them. All we said did not at first avail to calm their fears, in
which we however participated, but which a greater degree of strength of
mind enabled us to dissemble. At last, a firm countenance and consoling
words succeeded in calming them by degrees, but could not wholly dispel the
terror with which they were struck; for according to the judicious
reflection, made after reading our deplorable story, by Mr. Jay, whose
authority we quote with pleasure, "To support extreme misfortunes, and what
is worthy of remark, to bear great fatigues, moral energy is much more
necessary than corporeal strength, nay, than the habit of privations and
hard labour. On this narrow theatre where so many sufferings are united,
where the most cruel extremes of hunger and thirst are experienced, strong
and indefatigable men who have been brought up to the most laborious
professions, sink in succession under the weight of the common destiny,
while men of a weak constitution, and not inured to fatigue, find in their
minds the strength which their bodies want, endure with courage unheard-of
trials, and issue victorious from their struggle with the most horrible
afflictions. It is to the education they have received, to the exercise of
their intellectual faculties, that they owe this astonishing superiority
and their deliverance," When tranquillity was a little restored, we began
to look upon the raft for the charts, the compass and the anchor, which we
presumed had been placed there, from what had been said t