and while I admired their simple piety it
made me sensible of the hardness of my own heart in religious matters.

"Where are we, Mr Hurry?" asked Mrs Tarleton. "We owe much, I feel
sure, under God's providence, to your excellent seamanship."

I thanked her for her good opinion of me, and told her that we were, I
believed, at the mouth of Little Egg Harbour, on the coast of New
Jersey, and that I hoped to run up the river and to land her at some
spot at which conveyances might be obtained, as I would not risk her
safety by continuing the voyage. Her niece looked far more than her
aunt expressed, so I was perfectly satisfied, though she said but
little. They knew that I should be in no hurry to part from them;
indeed, I had received orders from Sir Peter not to do so till I had
conducted them to their friends or seen them in a place of safety.

While I was still talking to the ladies. Grampus called me aside and
hurriedly told me that, if the hands were not sent to the pumps, in a
very short time the schooner would go down. I accordingly set all hands
to work, and when they had lessened the water in the hold I once more
made sail, and, with the lead going on either side, I stood through a
passage to the southward, and then to the west again up Little Egg
River. I hoisted a flag of truce as I stood on. After some time I came
in sight of a gentleman's house--a long low building with a verandah
round it--the usual style of building in that part of the country. Near
the house was a village. I dropped my anchor and lowered a boat to go
on shore.

"We will accompany you, Mr Hurry," said Mrs Tarleton, who at that
moment with her niece followed me on deck after I had announced my
intention. "Should the country be in possession of the troops of George
of Brunswick, you are safe; but if in that of our patriot troops, you
may be liable to molestation."

To this proposal I could raise no objection, so, ordering Grampus to
keep the people at the pumps to prevent the vessel from sinking, I
handed the ladies into the boat, and steered for a rough little wooden
stage near the large house I had observed on shore. I had a white flag
at the end of a boat-hook in the bows of the boat, that I might be
prepared for friends or foes. Not a person was to be seen moving. I
ran the boat alongside the stage, and with my passengers stepped on
shore, leaving Rockets with the flag and two other hands in the boat.
There was, for a sho