All eyes were turned to the offing, but still no assistance appeared.  Captain Colville then resolved to hoist the white flag on the stump of the mizen mast, in hopes that it might be seen from the shore, and that he might preserve the lives of his crew by surrendering to the enemy.

This step was necessary, as it was the only means of rescue that remained to them.  The barge had been swamped along side, soon after the masts were cut away, and three of the crew had been drowned.  The launch, also, which was lying to leeward, had parted from her grapnel, and had been obliged to bear up for the Texel.

At 11 o’clock A.M., Captain Colville asked the carpenter if he thought they could remain another night upon the wreck:  the carpenter assured him that he considered it almost impossible to do so, and that the attempt would be attended with the greatest risk to all on board.  The ship had already parted amidships, the main beam and several others being broken.

Five rafts had been carefully instructed, each fitted with a mast and sail; and at the earnest entreaty of the crew, Captain Colville, on hearing the carpenter’s report, allowed a part of the men to leave the wreck on these rafts.

About noon, as the fifth and last raft was about to leave the ship, seven boats (one bearing a flag of truce) were seen coming towards them from the shore.  The captain ordered the people to throw the quarter-deck guns, and all the arms and warlike stores overboard, which they did.

When the boats arrived alongside, an officer hailed the wreck, and said that if Captain Colville was willing to secure the preservation of his officers and crew, by surrendering as prisoners of war, the whole company should be conducted in safety to the Helder.  Captain Colville felt himself obliged to submit to the imperious dictates of necessity, and he accordingly accepted the proffered conditions, and surrendered himself to the Dutch, with all the ship’s company that remained on the wreck.

Before nightfall they were all landed.  Only those who have been placed in similar circumstances can judge of the feelings of men so rescued from the awful contemplation of immediate and certain death.  How happy now did they feel in occupying a position, which two days before they would have shrunk from with horror, and have shed their life’s blood to avoid.  But ‘there is no virtue like necessity,’

    All places that the eye of heaven visits,
    Are to a wise man ports and happy havens. 
                    RICHARD II.

And the Romney’s company were wise enough to rejoice, under the circumstances of their hard case, in finding themselves safely landed in an enemy’s country as prisoners of war.