terrible the day before, and could be so calm and so pleasant in a
little time after. And now, lest my good resolutions should continue, my
companion, who had indeed enticed me away, came to me and said, "Well;
Bob," clapping me on the shoulder, "how do you do after it? I warrant
you were frightened, wa'n't you, last night, when it blew but a cap-full
of wind?"--"A cap-full do you call it?" said I; "it was a terrible
storm."--"A storm, you fool you," replied he, "do you call that a
storm? why it was nothing at all; give us but a good ship and sea-room,
and we think nothing of such a squall of wind as that; but you're but a
fresh-water sailor. Bob, Come, let us make a bowl of punch, and we'll
forget all that; do you see what charming weather it is now?" To make
short this sad part of my story, we went the old way of all sailors; the
punch was made, and I was made drunk with it; and in that one night's
wickedness I drowned all my repentance, all my reflections upon my past
conduct, and all my resolutions for my future. In a word, as the sea was
returned to its smoothness of surface and settled calmness by the
abatement of that storm, so the hurry of my thoughts being over, my
fears and apprehensions of being swallowed up by the sea being
forgotten, and the current of my former desires returned, I entirely
forgot the vows and promises that I made in my distress. I found,
indeed, some intervals of reflection; and serious thoughts did, as it
were, endeavour to return again sometimes; but I shook them off, and
roused myself from them as it were from a distemper, and applying myself
to drinking and company, soon mastered the return of those fits, for so
I called them; and I had in five or six days got as complete a victory
over conscience, as any young fellow that resolved not to be troubled
with it, could desire: but I was to have another trial for it still; and
Providence, as in such cases generally it does, resolved to leave me
entirely without excuse: for if I would not take this for a deliverance,
the next was to be such a one as the worst and most hardened wretch
among us would confess both the danger and the mercy of.

The sixth day of our being at sea we came into Yarmouth Roads; the wind
having been contrary, and the weather calm, we had made but little way
since the storm. Here we were obliged to come to anchor, and here we
lay, the wind continuing contrary, viz. at south-west, for seven or
eight days, during which