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The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
page 16 of 301 (05%)
sixty-four men, women, and children; for there were a great many
passengers.

Upon inquiry we found it was a French merchant ship of three-
hundred tons, home-bound from Quebec. The master gave us a long
account of the distress of his ship; how the fire began in the
steerage by the negligence of the steersman, which, on his crying
out for help, was, as everybody thought, entirely put out; but they
soon found that some sparks of the first fire had got into some
part of the ship so difficult to come at that they could not
effectually quench it; and afterwards getting in between the
timbers, and within the ceiling of the ship, it proceeded into the
hold, and mastered all the skill and all the application they were
able to exert.

They had no more to do then but to get into their boats, which, to
their great comfort, were pretty large; being their long-boat, and
a great shallop, besides a small skiff, which was of no great
service to them, other than to get some fresh water and provisions
into her, after they had secured their lives from the fire. They
had, indeed, small hopes of their lives by getting into these boats
at that distance from any land; only, as they said, that they thus
escaped from the fire, and there was a possibility that some ship
might happen to be at sea, and might take them in. They had sails,
oars, and a compass; and had as much provision and water as, with
sparing it so as to be next door to starving, might support them
about twelve days, in which, if they had no bad weather and no
contrary winds, the captain said he hoped he might get to the banks
of Newfoundland, and might perhaps take some fish, to sustain them
till they might go on shore. But there were so many chances
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