frigate rested on the sand, which obliged us to suspend for ever our last
operations. If it had been possible to hold her this night to two or three
cables more in the open sea, still lightening her, perhaps, we repeat it,
she might have been placed out of danger.

At night the sky became cloudy, the winds came from the sea, and blew
violently. The sea ran high, and the frigate began to heel with more and
more violence, every moment we expected to see her bulge; consternation
again spread, and we soon felt the cruel certainty that she was
irrecoverably lost.[B3] She bulged in the middle of the night, the keel
broke in two, the helm was unship'd, and held to the stern only by the
chains, which caused it to do dreadful damage; it produced the effect of a
strong horizontal ram, which violently impelled by the waves, continually
struck the poop of the ship; the whole back part of the captain's cabin was
beat in, the water entered in an alarming manner. About eleven o'clock
there was a kind of mutiny, which was afterwards checked by the presence of
the governor and the officers; it was excited by some soldiers, who
persuaded their comrades that it was intended to abandon them on board the
frigate, while the crew escaped in the boats; these alarms were excited by
the imprudence of a young man; some soldiers had already taken their arms,
and had ranged themselves on the deck, all the avenues to which they
occupied.

The raft, impelled by the strength of the current and of the sea, broke the
cable which fastened it to the frigate and began to drive; those who beheld
this accident announced it by their cries, and a boat was immediately sent
after it, which brought it back. This was a distressing night for us all;
agitated by the idea that our frigate was totally lost, and alarmed by the
violent shocks which it received from the waves, we were unable to take a
moment's repose.