e roll. In this condition, with
additional disasters to the hull and rigging, they continued beating
westward to the 12th, when they were in lat. 60 deg. S. and in great want
of provisions, numbers perishing daily by the fatigue of pumping, and
the survivors quite dispirited by labour, hunger, and the severity
of the weather, their decks being covered with snow above a foot in
depth. Finding the wind fixed in the west and blowing strong, and
their passage that way impossible, they resolved to bear away for the
Rio Plata. On the 22d they had to throw overboard all their upper-deck
guns and an anchor, and were obliged to take six turns of the cable
round the ship to prevent her from opening and falling to pieces. On
the 4th of April, in calm weather, but with a very heavy sea, the
ship rolled so much that her main-mast came by the board, and was soon
after followed by the fore and mizen masts, after which they had
to cut away the boltsprit, to diminish, if possible, the leakage
forwards. By this time two hundred and fifty of the men had perished
by hunger and fatigue. Those who were capable of working at the pumps,
at which every officer took his turn without exception, were only
allowed an ounce and a half of biscuit daily; while those who were
weak and sickly, so that they could not assist in this necessary
labour, had no more than one ounce of wheat. It was common for the men
to fall down dead at the pumps, and all they could muster for duty,
including the officers, was from eighty to an hundred men.

The S.W. wind blew so fresh for some days after they lost their masts,
that they could not set up jury-masts; so that they were obliged to
drive like a wreck, between the latitude of 32 deg. and 38 deg. S. till the
24th of April, when they made the coast of Brazil at Rio de Patas,
ten leagues to the southward of the island of St Catharines. They came
here to an anchor, the captain being very desirous of proceeding to St
Catharines, in order to save the hull of the ship, with her guns and
stores: But the crew instantly left off pumping, and all in one voice
cried out, _On shore! on shore!_ enraged at the hardships they had
suffered and the numbers they had lost, there being at this time
thirty dead bodies lying on the deck. Thus the captain was obliged to
run the ship directly to the land, where she parted and sunk five days
after, with all her stores and furniture; but the remainder of the
crew, whom hunger and fatigue ha