the
admiral thought it expedient to alter his design, and about five in
afternoon made a signal for standing out to sea. Of the circumstances
relative to the Catharine, a more detailed account has been preserved
than respecting the other vessels of the fleet; and they are preserved
by a female, with whose name we are unacquainted, in these words.

"The evening of the 17th was boisterous and threatening; the master
said he was apprehensive that we should have bad weather; and when I
was desired to go on deck and look at the appearance of the sky, I
observed that it was troubled and red, with great heavy clouds flying
in all directions, and with a sort of dull mist surrounding the moon.
On repeating this to the other passengers, two of whom had been at sea
before, they said we should certainly have a stormy night, and indeed
it proved so very tempestuous that no rest was to be obtained. Nobody,
however, seemed to think that there was any danger, though the fog was
so thick that the master could see nothing by which to direct his
course; but he thought that he had sufficient sea-room.

The fatigue I had suffered from the tossing of the ship, and the
violence with which she continued to roll, had kept me in bed. It was
about ten o'clock in the morning of the 18th, when the mate looked
down into the cabin and cried, "save yourselves if you can!"

The consternation and terror of that moment cannot be described; I had
on a loose dressing gown, and wrapping it round me I went up, not
quite on deck, but to the top of the stairs, from whence I saw the sea
break mountain high against the shore. The passengers and soldiers
seemed thunderstruck by the sense of immediate and inevitable danger,
and the seamen, too conscious of the hopelessness of any exertion,
stood in speechless agony, certain of meeting in a few moments that
destruction which now menaced them.

While I thus surveyed the scene around me in a kind of dread which no
words can figure, Mr. Burns, an officer of dragoons, who had come up
in his shirt, called to Mr. Jenner and Mr. Stains for his cloak;
nobody, however, could attend to any thing in such a moment but
self-preservation.

Mr. Jenner, Mr. Stains and Mr. Dodd the surgeon, now passed me, their
countenances sufficiently expressing their sense of the situation in
which we all were. Mr. Burns spoke cheerfully to me; he bade me take
good courage, and Mr. Jenner observed, there was a good shore near,
and all wou