my lieutenant, there were eight-and-twenty of my best men; but just in the dusk of the evening, I perceived one of them scudding before the seas, and making towards the ship:  This proved to be the long-boat, which, in spite of all the efforts of those on board, had been forced from her grappling, and driven off the land.  We took the best opportunity that offered to get her on board, but notwithstanding all our care, she received considerable damage as we were hoisting her in.  She had on board ten of my people, who informed me, that when they were first driven from the shore, they had some fire-wood on board, but that they were obliged to throw that, and every thing else, into the sea, to lighten the boat.  As we had yet seen nothing of the cutter, and had reason to fear that she also, with the tents, and the other eighteen people, besides the lieutenant, had been driven off the island, I gave her up for lost; knowing that if the night, which was now at hand, should overtake her in such a storm, she must inevitably perish.  It was however possible that the people might be ashore, and therefore that, if the boat should be lost, they might still be preserved; for this reason I determined to regain the land as soon as possible.  At midnight the weather became more moderate, so that we could carry our courses and topsails, and at four o’clock in the morning we crowded all the sail we could make.  At ten o’clock, we were very near the shore; to our great concern, we saw nothing of the cutter, yet we continued to stand on till about noon, when we happily discovered her at a grappling, close under the land:  We immediately ran to our glasses, by the help of which we saw the people getting into her; and about three o’clock, to our mutual and inexpressible joy, she came safe on board with all her people:  They were however so exhausted with fatigue, that they could scarcely get up the ship’s side.  The lieutenant told me, that the night before he had attempted to come off, but that as soon as he had left the shore, a sudden squall so nearly filled the boat with water, that she was very near going to the bottom; but that all hands bailing with the utmost diligence and activity, they happily cleared her:  That he then made for the land again, which, with the utmost difficulty, he regained, and having left a sufficient number on board the boat, to watch her, and keep her free from water, he with the rest of the people went on shore.  That having passed the night in a state of inexpressible anxiety and distress, they looked out for the ship with the first dawn of the morning, and seeing nothing of her, concluded that she had perished in the storm, which they had never seen exceeded.  They did not, however, sit down torpid in despair, but began immediately to clear the ground near the beach of brushes and weeds, and cut down several trees of which they made rollers to assist them in hauling up the boat, in order to secure her; intending, as they had no hope of the ship’s return, to wait till the summer season and then attempt to make the island of Juan Fernandes.  They had now better hopes, and all sense of the dangers that were before us was for a while obliterated by the joy of our escape from those that were past.