to, and sounded; we had still fifty-two fathom, but I thought that we
were embayed, and rather wished than hoped that we should get clear
before night. We made sail and steered E.S.E. the land still having the
same appearance, and the hills looking blue, as they generally do at a
little distance in dark rainy weather, and now many of the people said
that they saw the sea break upon the sandy beaches; but having steered
out for about an hour, what we had taken for land vanished all at once,
and to our astonishment appeared to have been a fog-bank. Though I had
been almost continually at sea for seven-and-twenty years, I had never
seen such a deception before; others, however, have been equally
deceived; for the master of a ship not long since made oath, that he had
seen an island between the west end of Ireland and Newfoundland, and
even distinguished the trees that grew upon it Yet it is certain that no
such island exists, at least it could never be found, though several
ships were afterwards sent out on purpose to seek it. And I am sure,
that if the weather had not cleared up soon enough for us to see what we
had taken for land disappear, every man on board would freely have made
oath, that land had been discovered in this situation.

The next day, at four o'clock in the afternoon, the weather being
extremely fine, the wind shifted at once to the S.W. and began to blow
fresh, the sky at the same time becoming black to windward: In a few
minutes all the people that were upon the deck were alarmed with a
sudden and unusual noise, like the breaking of the sea upon the shore. I
ordered the top-sails to be handed immediately; but before it could be
done, I saw the sea approaching at some distance, in vast billows
covered with foam; I called to the people to haul up the fore-sail, and
let go the main-sheet instantly; for I was persuaded that if we had any
sail out when the gust reached us, we should either be overset, or lose
all our masts. It reached us, however, before we could raise the main