On the 27th of December, they left this island, and steered for Easter Island; but passed it far to the leeward.  They then directed their course for Juan Fernandez, which was about twenty-five hundred miles east by south-east from them.  On the 10th of January, 1821, Matthew P. Joy, the second mate, died, and his body was launched into the deep.  His constitution was slender, and it was supposed that his sufferings, though great, were not the immediate cause of his death.  On the 12th, the mate’s boat separated from the other two, and did not fall in with them afterwards.  The situation of the mate and his crew, became daily more and more distressing.  The weather was mostly calm, the sun hot and scorching.  They were growing weaker and weaker by want of food, and yet, such was their distance from land, that they were obliged to lessen their allowance nearly one half.  On the 20th, a black man died.

On the 28th, they found, on calculation, that their allowance, only one and a half ounce of bread per day to a man, would be exhausted in fourteen days; and that this allowance was not sufficient to sustain life.  They therefore determined to extend the indulgence, and take the consequence, whether to live or die.  On the 8th of February, another of the crew died.  From this time to the 17th, their sufferings were extreme.  At seven o’clock, A.M. of that day, they were aroused from a lethargy by the cheering cry of the steersman, “there’s a sail!” The boat was soon descried by the vessel, the brig Indian, Captain Grozier, of London, which took them on board, latitude 33 deg. 45’ S., longitude 81 deg. 3’ W. They were treated by Captain Grozier with all the care and tenderness which their weak condition required.  On the same day they made Massafuero, and on the 25th, arrived at Valparaiso.

Captain Pollard and Charles Ramsdell, the only survivors in the captain’s boat, were taken up on the 23d of February, 1821, by the ship Dauphin, of Nantucket, Captain Zimri Coffin, in latitude 37 deg.  S. off St. Mary’s.  The captain relates, that, after the mate’s boat was separated from the others, they made what progress their weak condition would permit, towards the island of Juan Fernandez, but contrary winds and calm weather, together with the extreme debility of the crew, prevented their making much progress.

On the 29th of January, the second mate’s boat separated from the captain’s, in the night, at which time their provisions were totally exhausted, since which they have not been heard from.

We shall not attempt a sketch of the sufferings of the crews of these boats.  Imagination may picture the horrors of their situation, and the extremes to which they were driven to sustain life, but no power of the imagination can heighten the dreadful reality.

The following is an account of the whole crew.

In the captain’s boat but two survived, Captain Pollard and Charles Ramsdell.  In the mate’s boat three survived, Owen Chase, the mate, Benjamin Lawrence, and Thomas Nickerson.  Left on Duncie’s Island, and afterwards taken off, Seth Weeks, William Wright, and Thomas Chapple.  One left the ship before the accident.  In the second mate’s boat, when separated from the captain’s, three.  Dead, nine, which added to the second mate’s crew, doubtless lost, makes total deaths twelve.