ly extended to them,--by humbly and incessantly applying for
accessions of that faith which they are sensible removed the terrors of
their awakened consciences, and can alone enable them henceforward to
live in a sober, righteous, and godly manner, and thereby give the only
unquestionable proof of their love to God, and their interest in the
great salvation of His Son Jesus Christ.

If, on reading this imperfect narrative,[7] any persons beyond the
immediate circle of my companions in misery (for within it I can safely
declare that there were no indications of ridicule) should affect to
despise, as contemptible or unsoldierlike, the humble devotional
exercises to which I have now referred, I should like to assure them,
that although they were undoubtedly commenced and prosecuted much more
with an eternal than a temporal object in view, yet they also subserved
the important purpose of restoring order and composure amongst a certain
limited class of soldiers, at moments when mere military appeals had
ceased to operate.

I must state that, in general, it was not those most remarkable for
their fortitude who evinced either a precipitancy to depart, or a desire
to remain very long behind--the older and cooler soldiers appearing to
possess too much regard for their officers, as well as for their
individual credit, to take their hasty departure at a very early period
of the day, and too much wisdom and resolution to hesitate to the very
last.

But it was not till the close of this mournful tragedy that
backwardness, rather than impatience, to adopt the perilous and only
means of escape that offered, became generally discernible on the part
of the unhappy remnant still on board, and that made it not only
imperative on Captain Cobb to reiterate his threats, as well as his
entreaties, that not an instant should be lost, but seemed to render it
expedient for one of the officers of the troops, who had expressed his
intention of remaining to the last, to limit, in the hearing of those
around him, the period of his own stay. Seeing, however, between nine
and ten o'clock, that some individuals were consuming the precious
moments by obstinately hesitating to proceed, while others were making
the inadmissible request to be lowered down as the women had been,
learning from the boatmen that the wreck, which was already nine or ten
feet below the ordinary water mark, had sunk two feet lower since their
last trip; and calculating, beside