some clothing.  Several were bruised against the coral rocks, and three young lads were drowned.  One of these poor boys, who, in the three or four voyages he had made to sea, had been each time shipwrecked, had bewailed himself through the night as the persecuted Jonas who carried misfortune wherever he went.  He launched himself upon a broken spar with his captain; but having lost his hold in the breakers, was not seen afterwards.

At low water, which happened about two o’clock, the reef was dry very near to the Porpoise, and both officers and men were assiduously employed in getting upon it provisions and their clothes; they were brought from thence by the boats, for the depth was several feet at a distance round the bank.  Before dark, five half hogsheads of water, some flour, salt meat, rice, and spirits were landed, with such of the pigs and sheep as had escaped drowning; and every man from both ships had got on shore.  Some of the Cato’s sailors appeared in officers uniforms, given to them in the Porpoise; and I was pleased to see that our situation was not thought so bad by the people, as to hinder all pleasantry upon these promotions.  Those who had saved great coats or blankets shared with the less fortunate, and we laid down to sleep on the sand in tolerable tranquillity, being much oppressed with fatigue; and except from those of the Cato’s men who had been bruised or cut by the rocks, there was not a complaining voice heard on the bank.

The Porpoise’s two cutters and the gig were hauled up to high-water mark; but the latter not having been well secured, and the night tide rising higher than was expected, it was carried away, to our great loss.  In the morning [FRIDAY 19 AUGUST 1803], we had the satisfaction to see the ship still entire, and thrown higher up the reef; the Cato had gone to pieces, and all that remained was one of the quarters, which had floated over the front ledge of the reef, and lodged near our bank.  Of the Bridgewater nothing could be seen; and many fears were entertained for her safety.

For the better preservation of discipline, and of that union between the crews of the Porpoise and Cato and passengers of the Investigator, so necessary in our circumstances, it was highly expedient that they should be put on the same footing and united under one head.  The Porpoise was lost beyond a possibility of hope, and the situation of the commander and crew thereby rendered similar to that of their passengers; I therefore considered myself authorised and called upon, as the senior officer, to take the command of the whole; and my intention being communicated to lieutenant Fowler, he assented without hesitation to its expediency and propriety, and I owe to captain Park a similar acknowledgement.  The people were then assembled upon the top of the bank; and I informed the seamen of the Cato, one or two of whom had shown signs of discontent at being ordered to work, that as they doubtless expected to be fed from our provisions,