pt our deliverance. Before we go, provide our poor
animals with food for some days: we cannot take them with us, but if our
voyage succeed, we may return for them. Are you ready? Collect what you
wish to carry away, but only things absolutely necessary for our actual
wants." I planned that our first cargo should consist of a barrel of
powder, three fowling-pieces, three muskets, two pair of pocket pistols,
and one pair larger, ball, shot, and lead as much as we could carry,
with a bullet-mould; and I wished each of my sons, as well as their
mother, should have a complete game-bag, of which there were several in
the officers' cabins. We then set apart a box of portable soup, another
of biscuit, an iron pot, a fishing-rod, a chest of nails, and one of
carpenter's tools, also some sailcloth to make a tent. In fact my boys
collected so many things, we were compelled to leave some behind, though
I exchanged all the useless ballast for necessaries.

When all was ready, we implored the blessing of God on our undertaking,
and prepared to embark in our tubs. At this moment the cocks crowed a
sort of reproachful farewell to us; we had forgotten them; I immediately
proposed to take our poultry with us, geese, ducks, fowls and pigeons,
for, as I observed to my wife, if we could not feed them, they would, at
any rate, feed us. We placed our ten hens and two cocks in a covered
tub; the rest we set at liberty, hoping the geese and ducks might reach
the shore by water, and the pigeons by flight.

We waited a little for my wife, who came loaded with a large bag, which
she threw into the tub that contained her youngest son. I concluded it
was intended to steady him, or for a seat, and made no observation on
it. Here follows the order of our embarkation. In the first division,
sat the tender mother, the faithful and pious wife. In the second, our
amiable little Francis, six years old, and of a sweet disposition.

In the third, Fritz, our eldest, fourteen or fifteen years old, a
curly-headed, clever, intelligent and lively youth.

In the fourth, the powder-cask, with the fowls and the sailcloth.

Our provisions filled the fifth.

In the sixth, our heedless Jack, ten years old, enterprising, bold, and
useful.

In the seventh, Ernest, twelve years of age, well-informed and rational,
but somewhat selfish and indolent. In the eighth, myself, an anxious
father, charged with the important duty of guiding the vessel to save my
dear family.