reduced allowance of a biscuit a
day, an ounce of pork and half a pint of water. I, who just then
required sustenance more than most of my companions, felt the want of
substantial food very much. The Hinchinbrook, with which we were still
in company, was also short of provisions, and could ill spare any to
supply our wants. We now both of us felt the inconvenience of having
sailed in so great a hurry. It had been calculated that we should take
a week to get to our station; that we should cruise there a couple of
weeks, and take a week to return. Things were now growing extremely
serious, though the men bore their want of food very well, but we could
not help seeing clearly that the time might shortly come when we should
really have nothing whatever on board. On the 15th, believing that we
could not possibly reach a port, we stood to the northward and kept in
the latitude of Jamaica, hoping thus to fall in with a fleet of
merchantmen under convoy of some ships of war, which we knew were to
sail from Jamaica about that time. We had look-outs stationed at each
mast-head, eagerly on the watch for any strange sail, friend or foe,
from which we might have obtained relief. We should certainly have
attacked any foe, even twice our force, for the sake of obtaining food
from them. I believe that, so desperately we should have fought, we
should have conquered. Men are like wild beasts when hungry. There is
nothing they will not dare and do. Still we were doomed to
disappointment. On the 30th of July, all our bread and water being
expended, we were reduced to an allowance of one ounce of pork for each
man daily. It did just to keep body and soul together. We were
compelled to send each day on board the Hinchinbrook for a small cask of
water, which was all they could spare us. Even of this small allowance
we felt that we might any day be deprived, should we, as was very
probable, be separated from our consort by a gale of wind. On the 2nd
of August the faces of the purser and his clerks were longer than usual.
The ounce of pork was diminished to half an ounce, and then some of the
messmen found that they were getting only a quarter of an ounce, I
guessed, by the countenances of the men as they went forward, but they
said nothing. They very well knew that the present state of things
could not be helped. Very soon the purser came aft to the captain who
was on the quarter-deck--

"Sir, I have to report that there is