Next day, at daylight, they returned to the ship, no one daring to venture on board but the captain, their intention being to cut away the masts, and fearful that the moment the masts were cut away that the ship would go down.  With a single hatchet, the captain went on board, cut away the mast, when the ship righted.  The boats then came up, and the men, by the sole aid of spades, cut away the chain cable from around the foremast, which got the ship nearly on her keel.  The men then tied ropes around their bodies, got into the sea and cut a hole through the decks to get out provisions.  They could procure nothing but about five gallons of vinegar and twenty pounds of wet bread.  The ship threatened to sink, and they deemed it prudent to remain by her no longer, so they set sail in their boats and left her.

On the 22d of August, at about five o’clock P.M., they had the indescribable joy of seeing a ship in the distance.  They made signal and were soon answered, and in a short time they were reached by the ship Nantucket, of Nantucket, Mass., Captain Gibbs, who took them all on board, clothed and fed them, and extended to them in every way the greatest possible hospitality.

On the succeeding day Captain Gibbs went to the wreck of the ill-fated Ann Alexander, for the purpose of trying to procure something; but, as the sea was rough, and the attempt considered dangerous, he abandoned the project.  The Nantucket then set sail for Paita, where she arrived on the 15th of September, and where she landed Captain Deblois and his men.  Captain Deblois was kindly received and hospitably entertained at Paita by Captain Bathurst, an English gentleman residing there, and subsequently took passage on board the schooner Providence, Captain Starbuck, for Panama.

[Illustration:  BURNING OF THE KENT—­EAST INDIAMAN]

BURNING OF THE KENT.

The annexed engraving represents the burning of the Kent, East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay.  She had on board in all six hundred and forty-one persons at the time of the accident.  The fire broke out in the hold during a storm.  An officer on duty, finding that a spirit cask had broken loose, was taking measures to secure it, when a lurch of the ship caused him to drop his lantern, and, in his eagerness to save it, he let go the cask, which suddenly stove in, the spirits communicated with the flame, and the whole place was instantly in a blaze.  Hopes of subduing the fire at first were strong, but soon heavy volumes of smoke and a pitchy smell told that it had reached the cable-room.

In these awful circumstances, the captain ordered the lower decks to be scuttled, to admit water; this was done; several poor seamen being suffocated by the smoke in executing the order; but now a new danger threatened, the sea rushed in so furiously, that the ship was becoming water-logged, and all feared her going down.  Between six and seven hundred human beings, were by this time crowded on the deck.  Many on their knees earnestly implored the mercy of an all-powerful God! while some old stout-hearted sailors quietly seated themselves directly over the powder magazine,—­expecting an explosion every moment, and thinking thus to put a speedier end to their torture.