and said we should be all lost, I was dreadfully frighted: I got up but
of my cabin, and looked out; but such a dismal sight I never saw; the
sea went mountains high, and broke upon us every three or four minutes:
when I could look about, I could see nothing but distress around us: two
ships that rid near us, we found, had cut their masts by the board,
being deep laden; and our men cried out, that a ship which rid about a
mile a-head of us was foundered. Two more ships being driven from their
anchors, were run out of the roads to sea, at all adventures, and that
with not a mast standing. The light ships-fared the best, as not so much
labouring in the sea; but two or three of them drove, and came close by
us, running away with only their spritsail out before the wind.

Towards evening the mate and boatswain begged the master of our ship to
let them cut away the fore-mast, which he was very unwilling to do: but
the boatswain protesting to him, that if he did not, the ship would
founder, he consented; and when they had cut away the-fore-mast, the
main-mast stood so loose, and shook the ship so much, they were obliged
to cut her away also, and make a clear deck.

Any one may judge what a condition I must be in at all this, who was
but a young sailor, and who had been in such a fright before at but a
little. But if I can express at this distance the thoughts that I had
about me at that time, I was in tenfold more horror of mind upon account
of my former convictions, and the having returned from them to the
resolutions I had wickedly taken at first, than I was at death itself;
and these, added to the terror of the storm, put me in such a condition,
that I can by no words describe it. But the worst was not come yet; the
storm continued with such fury, that the seamen themselves acknowledged
they had never known a worse. We had a good ship, but she was deep
laden, and wallowed in the sea, that the seamen every now and then cried