d up or lowered, the first
mate proposed as a last resource in this extremity to run
into shore. It was a desperate act. The fatal moment
arrived! The captain and mate looked sadly at me with
clasped hands. I but too well understood this mute
language of men who from their profession were accustomed
to brave death. We made the land to starboard, where we
perceived the mouth of a river, which might prove to be
navigable. Without concealing anything, I informed the
passengers of both sexes of this manoeuvre, which was for
life or death....Who could describe the fury of the
waves! The storm had burst upon us in all its violence;
our masts seemed to reach up to the clouds, and then to
plunge into the abyss. A terrible shock told us that the
ship had touched the bottom. We then cut away the cordage
and masts to lighten her and try to float her again; this
came to pass, but the force of the waves turned her over
on her side....As the ship was already leaking in every
part, the passengers all rushed on deck; and some...threw
themselves into the sea and perished....The passengers
and crew had lashed themselves to the shrouds and spars
in order to resist the waves which, breaking over the
ship, were snatching fresh victims every moment....Our
only remaining resource was the two boats, the larger of
which was carried away by a wave and dashed to pieces.
The other was lowered into the water....I hastily seized
a rope, and by means of a tremendous leap fell into the
boat; the same wave which saved my life carried away my
two children....It would be difficult to describe the
horror of this terrible disaster, the cries of those
still on board the ship, and the harrowing spectacle of
those who, having thrown themselves into the waves, were
making useless efforts to gain the beach....Seven living
men at last found themselves on the shore of that unknown
land...and (in the evening) it was a heartrending sight
which presented itself when a hundred and fourteen
corpses were stretched on the sand, many of them with
arms and legs broken, or bearing other marks of the fury
of the elements."

For weeks the fugitives wandered about the woods, and at last were
rescued by a party of Indians thirty leagues from Louisbourg. The
indefatigible La Corne crossed in a birch-bark canoe from Cape Breton
to the mainland, and, travelling