On the forecastle, I found the oldest and stoutest seamen holding on by the weather rigging, and crying like children:  I was surprised at this, and felt proud to be above such weakness.  While my superiors in age and experience were sinking under apprehension, I was aware of our danger; and saw very clearly, that if the frigate did not right very shortly, it would be all over with us; for in spite of our precautions, the water was increasing below.  I swam back to the quarter-deck, where the captain, who was as brave a man as ever trod a plank, stood at the wheel with three of the best seamen; but such were the rude shocks which the rudder received from the sea, that it was with the utmost difficulty they could prevent themselves being thrown over the ship’s side.  The lee quarter-deck guns were under water; but it was proposed to throw them overboard; and as it was a matter of life and death, we succeeded.  Still she lay like a log, and would not right, and settled down in a very alarming manner.  The violence of the hurricane was unabated, and the general feeling seemed be, “To prayers!—­to prayers!—­all lost!”

The fore and main-masts still stood, supporting the weight of rigging and wreck which hung to them, and which, like a powerful lever, pressed the labouring ship down on her side.  To disengage this enormous top hamper, was to us an object more to be desired than expected.  Yet the case was desperate, and a desperate effort was to be made, or in half an hour we should have been past praying for, except by a Roman Catholic priest.  The danger of sending a man aloft was so imminent, that the captain would not order one on this service; but calling the ship’s company on the quarter-deck, pointed to the impending wreck, and by signs and gestures, and hard bawling, convinced them that unless the ship was immediately eased of her burden, she must go down.

At this moment every wave seemed to make a deeper and more fatal impression on her.  She descended rapidly in the hollows of the sea, and rose with dull and exhausted motion, as if she felt she could do no more.  She was worn out in the contest, and about to surrender, like a noble and battered fortress, to the overwhelming power of her enemies.  The men seemed stupefied with the danger; and I have no doubt, could they have got at the spirits, would have made themselves drunk; and in that state, have met their inevitable fate.  At every lurch, the mainmast appeared as if making the most violent efforts to disengage itself from the ship:  the weather shrouds became like straight bars of iron, while the lee shrouds hung over in a semi-circle to leeward, or with the weather-roll, banged against the mast, and threatened instant destruction, each moment, from the convulsive jerks.  We expected to see the mast fall, and with it the side of the ship to be beat in.  No man could be found daring enough, at the captain’s request, to venture aloft, and cut away the wreck of the main-top mast, and the main-yard, which was hanging up and down, with the weight of the top-mast and topsail yard resting upon it.  There was a dead and stupid pause, while the hurricane, if any thing, increased in violence.