“’In a very short time, in a minute or two, I should think, Lieutenant (now Admiral Sir P.H.) Durham ordered the drummer to be called to beat to “right ship.”  The drummer was called in a moment, and the ship was then just beginning to sink.  I jumped off the gangway as soon as the drummer was called.  There was no time for him to beat his drum, and I do not know that he had even had time to get it.  I ran down to my station, and, by the time I had got there, the men were tumbling down the hatchways one over another, to get to their stations as quick as possible to “right ship.”  My station was at the third gun from the head of the ship, on the starboard side of the lower gun-deck close by where the cable passes.  I said to the second captain of our gun whose name was Carrell, (for every gun has a first and second captain, though they are only sailors,) “Let us try to bouse our gun out, without waiting for the drum, as it will help to ‘right ship.’” We pushed the gun, but it ran back upon us, and we could not start him.  The water then rushed in at nearly all the port-holes of the larboard side of the lower gun-deck, and I directly said to Carrell, “Ned, lay hold of the ring-bolt, and jump out of the port-hole; the ship is sinking, and we shall all be drowned.”  He laid hold of the ring-bolt, and jumped out at the port-hole into the sea:  I believe he was drowned, for I never saw him afterwards.  I immediately got out at the same port-hole, which was the third from the head of the ship on the starboard side of the lower gun-deck, and when I had done so, I saw the port-hole as full of heads as it could cram, all trying to get out.

“’I caught hold of the best bower-anchor, which was just above me, to prevent falling back again into the port-hole, and seized hold of a woman who was trying to get out of the same place.  I dragged her out.  The ship was full of Jews, women, and people, selling all sorts of things.  I threw the woman from me, and saw all the heads drop back again in at the port-hole, for the ship had got so much on her larboard side, that the starboard port-holes were as much upright as if the men had tried to get out of the top of a chimney, with nothing for their legs and feet to act upon.  I threw the woman from me, and just after that moment, the air that was between decks, drafted out at the port-holes very swiftly.  It was quite a huff of wind, and it blew my hat off.  The ship then sunk in a moment.  I tried to swim, but I could not, although I plunged as hard as I could, both hands and feet.  The sinking of the ship drew me down so:  indeed, I think I must have gone down within a yard as low as the ship did.  When the ship touched the bottom, the water boiled up a great deal, and then I felt that I could swim, and began to rise.

“’When I was about half-way up to the top of the water, I put my right hand on the head of a man who was nearly exhausted.  He wore long hair, as did many of the men at that time; he tried to grapple me, and he put his four fingers into my right shoe, alongside the outer edge of my foot.  I succeeded in kicking my shoe off, and, putting my hand on his shoulder, I shoved him away:  I then rose to the surface of the water.