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 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 loaden,
and wallowed in the sea, that the seamen every now and then cried out,
she would founder. It was my advantage in one respect, that I did not
know what they meant by founder till I inquired. However, the storm was
so violent, that I saw what is not often seen, the master, the
boatswain, and some others more sensible than the rest, at their
prayers, and expecting every moment when the ship would go to the
bottom. In the middle of the night, and under all the rest of our
distresses, one of the men that had been down on purpose to see, cried
out, we had sprang a leak; another said, there was four foot water in
the hold. Then all hands were called to the pump. At that very word my
heart, as I thought, died within me, and I fell backwards upon the side