At night the sky became cloudy, the winds came from the sea, and blew violently.  The sea ran high, and the frigate began to heel with more and more violence, every moment we expected to see her bulge; consternation again spread, and we soon felt the cruel certainty that she was irrecoverably lost.[B3] She bulged in the middle of the night, the keel broke in two, the helm was unship’d, and held to the stern only by the chains, which caused it to do dreadful damage; it produced the effect of a strong horizontal ram, which violently impelled by the waves, continually struck the poop of the ship; the whole back part of the captain’s cabin was beat in, the water entered in an alarming manner.  About eleven o’clock there was a kind of mutiny, which was afterwards checked by the presence of the governor and the officers; it was excited by some soldiers, who persuaded their comrades that it was intended to abandon them on board the frigate, while the crew escaped in the boats; these alarms were excited by the imprudence of a young man; some soldiers had already taken their arms, and had ranged themselves on the deck, all the avenues to which they occupied.

The raft, impelled by the strength of the current and of the sea, broke the cable which fastened it to the frigate and began to drive; those who beheld this accident announced it by their cries, and a boat was immediately sent after it, which brought it back.  This was a distressing night for us all; agitated by the idea that our frigate was totally lost, and alarmed by the violent shocks which it received from the waves, we were unable to take a moment’s repose.

At day-break, on the 5th, there were two metres seventy centimetres water in the hold, and the pumps could no longer work with effect:  it was decided we ought to quit the vessel as soon as possible.  The frigate, it was said, threatened to upset; a childish fear, doubtless; but, what particularly made it absolutely necessary to abandon her, was, that the water had already penetrated between decks.  A quantity of biscuit was hastily taken from the store-room; wine and fresh water were also got out; these provisions were intended to be placed in the boats and on the raft.  To preserve the biscuit from the salt water it was put into strong iron hooped barrels, which were perfectly fit for the purpose.  We are ignorant why these provisions, so carefully prepared were not embarked either on the raft or in the boats; the precipitation with which we embarked was the cause of this negligence, so that some boats did not save above twenty-four pounds of biscuit, a small cask of water and very little wine:  the rest was abandoned on the deck of the frigate or thrown into the sea during the tumult of the evacuation.  The raft alone had a pretty large quantity of wine, but not a single barrel of biscuit, and if any was put upon it, it was thrown off by the soldiers when they placed themselves upon it.  To avoid confusion, there was made, the day before,