e ship up. The storm still
increasing, they let go the kedge anchor; so that they then rode by four
anchors ahead, which were all they had.

"But between eleven and twelve o'clock the wind came about west and by
south, and blew in so violent and terrible a manner that, though they
rode under the lee of a high shore, yet the ship was driven from all her
anchors, and about midnight drove quite out of the harbour (the opening
of the harbour lying due east and west) into the open sea, the men having
neither anchor or cable or boat to help themselves.

"In this dreadful condition (they driving, I say, out of the harbour)
their first and chief care was to go clear of the rocks which lie on
either side the harbour's mouth, and which they performed pretty well.
Then, seeing no remedy, they consulted what to do next. They could carry
no sail at first--no, not a knot; nor do anything but run away afore it.
The only thing they had to think on was to keep her out at sea as far as
they could, for fear of a point of land called the Dead Man's Head, which
lies to the eastward of Falmouth Haven; and then, if they could escape
the land, thought to run in for Plymouth next morning, so, if possible,
to save their lives.

"In this frighted condition they drove away at a prodigious rate, having
sometimes the bonnet of their foresail a little out, but the yard lowered
almost to the deck--sometimes the ship almost under water, and sometimes
above, keeping still in the offing, for fear of the land, till they might
see daylight. But when the day broke they found they were to think no
more of Plymouth, for they were far enough beyond it; and the first land
they made was Peverel Point, being the southernmost land of the Isle of
Purbeck, in Dorsetshire, and a little to the westward of the Isle of
Wight; so that now they were in a terrible consternation, and driving
still at a prodigious rate. By seven o'clock they found themselves
broadside of the Isle of Wight.

"Here they consulted again what to do to save their lives. One of the
boys was for running her into the Downs; but the man objected that,
having no anchor or cable nor boat to go on shore with, and the storm
blowing off shore in the Downs, they should be inevitably blown off and
lost upon the unfortunate Goodwin--which, it seems, the man had been on
once before and narrowly escaped.

"Now came the last consultation for their lives. The other of the boys
said he had been in a ce