t eleven or twelve o'clock, that our main
chains were thrown by every lurch considerably under water; and the best
cleated articles of furniture in the cabins and the cuddy were dashed
about with so much noise and violence as to excite the liveliest
apprehensions of individual danger.

It was a little before this period that one of the officers of the ship,
with the well-meant intention of ascertaining that all was fast below,
descended with two of the sailors into the hold, where they carried with
them, for safety, a light in the patent lantern; and seeing that the
lamp burned dimly, the officer took the precaution to hand it up to the
orlop deck to be trimmed. Having afterwards discovered one of the spirit
casks to be adrift, he sent the sailors for some billets of wood to
secure it; but the ship in their absence having made a heavy lurch, the
officer unfortunately dropped the light; and letting go his hold of the
cask in his eagerness to recover the lantern, it suddenly stove, and the
spirits communicating with the lamp, the whole place was instantly in a
blaze.

I know not what steps were then taken. I myself had been engaged during
the greater part of the morning in double-lashing and otherwise securing
the furniture in my cabin, and in occasionally going to the cuddy, where
the marine barometers were suspended, to mark their varying indications
during the gale, in my journal; and it was on one of those occasions,
after having read to Mrs. ----, at her request, the twelfth chapter of
St. Luke, which so beautifully declares and illustrates the minute and
tender providence of God, and so solemnly urges on all the necessity of
continual watchfulness and readiness for the "coming of the Son of man,"
that I received from Captain Spence, the captain of the day, the
alarming information that the ship was on fire in the afterhold. On
hastening to the hatchway, whence smoke was slowly ascending, I found
Captain Cobb and other officers giving orders, which seemed to be
promptly obeyed by the seamen and troops, who used every exertion by
means of the pumps, buckets of water, wet sails, hammocks, &c., to
extinguish the flames.

With a view to excite among the ladies as little alarm as possible, in
conveying this intelligence to Colonel Fearon, the commanding officer of
the troops, I knocked gently at his cabin door, and expressed a wish to
speak with him; but whether my countenance betrayed the state of my
feelings, or the