ide, till at last the
men rowing very heartily, and venturing their lives to save ours, our men
cast them a rope over the stern with a buoy to it, and then veered it out
a great length, which they, after much labour and hazard, took hold of,
and we hauled them close under our stern, and got all into their boat.
It was to no purpose for them or us, after we were in the boat, to think
of reaching their own ship; so all agreed to let her drive, and only to
pull her in towards shore as much as we could; and our master promised
them, that if the boat was staved upon shore, he would make it good to
their master: so partly rowing and partly driving, our boat went away to
the northward, sloping towards the shore almost as far as Winterton Ness.

We were not much more than a quarter of an hour out of our ship till we
saw her sink, and then I understood for the first time what was meant by
a ship foundering in the sea. I must acknowledge I had hardly eyes to
look up when the seamen told me she was sinking; for from the moment that
they rather put me into the boat than that I might be said to go in, my
heart was, as it were, dead within me, partly with fright, partly with
horror of mind, and the thoughts of what was yet before me.

While we were in this condition--the men yet labouring at the oar to
bring the boat near the shore--we could see (when, our boat mounting the
waves, we were able to see the shore) a great many people running along
the strand to assist us when we should come near; but we made but slow
way towards the shore; nor were we able to reach the shore till, being
past the lighthouse at Winterton, the shore falls off to the westward
towards Cromer, and so the land broke off a little the violence of the
wind. Here we got in, and though not without much difficulty, got all
safe on shore, and walked afterwards on foot to Yarmouth, where, as
unfortunate men, we were used with great humanity, as well by the
magistrates of the town, who assigned us good quarters, as by particular
merchants and owners of ships, and had money given us sufficient to carry
us either to London or back to Hull as we thought fit.

Had I now had the sense to have gone back to Hull, and have gone home, I
had been happy, and my father, as in our blessed Saviour's parable, had
even killed the fatted calf for me; for hearing the ship I went away in
was cast away in Yarmouth Roads, it was a great while before he had any
assurances that I was not