horrible
and premature a death. Our old soldiers and all our people in general
did everything they could to prolong his existence, but all was in
vain. Neither the wine which they gave him without regret, nor all the
means they employed, could arrest his melancholy doom, and he expired
in the arms of M. Coudin, who had not ceased to give him the most
unwearied attention. Whilst he had strength to move, he ran
incessantly from one side to the other, loudly calling for his unhappy
mother, for water and food. He trod indiscriminately on the feet and
legs of his companions in misfortune, who, in their turn, uttered
sorrowful cries, but these were very rarely accompanied with menaces;
they pardoned all which the poor boy had made them suffer. He was not
in his senses, consequently could not be expected to behave as if he
had had the use of his reason.

There now remained but twenty-seven of us. Fifteen of that number
seemed able to live yet some days; the rest, covered with large
wounds, had almost entirely lost the use of their reason. They still,
however, shared in the distributions, and would, before they died,
consume to thirty or forty bottles of wine, which to us were
inestimable. We deliberated, that by putting the sick on half
allowance was but putting them to death by halves: but after a
counsel, at which presided the most dreadful despair, it was decided
they should be thrown into the sea. This means, however repugnant,
however horrible it appeared to us, procured the survivors six days
wine. But after the decision was made, who durst execute it? The habit
of seeing death ready to devour us; the certainty of our infallible
destruction without this monstrous expedient; all, in short, had
hardened our hearts to every feeling but that of self-preservation.
Three sailors and a soldier took charge of this cruel business. We
looked aside and shed tears of blood at the fate of these
unfortunates. Among them were the wretched sutler and her husband.
Both had been grievously wounded in the different combats. The woman
had a thigh broken between the beams of the raft, and a stroke of a
sabre had made a deep wound in the head of her husband. Every thing
announced their approaching end. We consoled ourselves with the belief
that our cruel resolution shortened but a brief space the term of
their existence. Ye who shudder at the cry of outraged humanity,
recollect, that it was other men, fellow-countrymen, comrades who had
pla