that the sea went so high that the boat could not live, and that we
should be inevitably drowned. As to making sail, we had none, nor
if we had could we have done anything with it; so we worked at the
oar towards the land, though with heavy hearts, like men going to
execution; for we all knew that when the boat came near the shore
she would be dashed in a thousand pieces by the breach of the sea.
However, we committed our souls to God in the most earnest manner;
and the wind driving us towards the shore, we hastened our
destruction with our own hands, pulling as well as we could towards
land.

What the shore was, whether rock or sand, whether steep or shoal,
we knew not. The only hope that could rationally give us the least
shadow of expectation was, if we might find some bay or gulf, or
the mouth of some river, where by great chance we might have run
our boat in, or got under the lee of the land, and perhaps made
smooth water. But there was nothing like this appeared; but as we
made nearer and nearer the shore, the land looked more frightful
than the sea.

After we had rowed, or rather driven about a league and a half, as
we reckoned it, a raging wave, mountain-like, came rolling astern
of us, and plainly bade us expect the COUP DE GRACE. It took us
with such a fury, that it overset the boat at once; and separating
us as well from the boat as from one another, gave us no time to
say, "O God!" for we were all swallowed up in a moment.

Nothing can describe the confusion of thought which I felt when I
sank into the water; for though I swam very well, yet I could not
deliver myself from the waves so as to draw breath, till that wave