which served as a shifting
back-stay.--Purnell also fixed his red flannel waistcoat at the
mast-head, as a signal the most likely to be seen.

Soon after this some of them observed a sloop at a great distance,
coming, as they thought, from the land. This roused every man's
spirits; they got out their oars, at which they laboured alternately,
exerting all their remaining strength to come up with her; but night
coming on, and the sloop getting a fresh breeze of wind, they lost
sight of her, which occasioned a general consternation; however, the
appearance of the North star, which they kept on their starboard-bow,
gave them hopes that they stood in for land. This night one William
Wathing died; he was 64 years of age, and had been to sea 50 years;
quite worn out with fatigue and hunger, he earnestly prayed, to the
last moment, for a drop of water to cool his tongue. Early the next
morning Hugh Williams also died, and in the course of the day another
of the crew: entirely exhausted,--they both expired without a groan.

Early in the morning of July 13, it began to blow very fresh, and
increased so much, that they were obliged to furl their sail, and keep
the boat before the wind and sea, which drove them off soundings. In
the evening their gunner died. The weather now becoming moderate and
the wind in the S. W. quarter, they made sail, not one being able to
row or pull an oar at any rate; they ran all this night with a fine
breeze.

The next morning (July 14) two more of the crew died, and in the
evening they also lost the same number. They found they were on
soundings again, and concluded the wind had got round to the N. W.
quarter. They stood in for the land all this night, and early on July
12 two others died; the deceased were thrown overboard as soon as
their breath had departed. The weather was now thick and hazy, and
they were still certain that they were on soundings.

The cabin-boy was seldom required to do any thing, and as his
intellects, at this time, were very good, and his understanding clear,
it was the opinion of Mr. Purnell that he would survive them all, but
he prudently kept his thoughts to himself. The captain seemed likewise
tolerably well, and to have kept up his spirits. On account of the
haziness of the weather, they could not so well know how they steered
in the day time as at night; for, whenever the North star appeared,
they endeavored to keep it on their starboard bow, by which means they
we