In order to inspire others with courage and confidence, he must display decision in every look and gesture.  Whatever others might do, his lip must not tremble, nor his eyelid quiver—­no look of apprehension must be seen on his brow.  He must stand forth calm and undaunted—­the recollection of tender ties and loving hearts might wring his soul with agony, but these thoughts must be banished; the safety of six hundred human beings depended, under God, on his firmness and exertion, and every eye was directed to him in anxious inquiry.  When the ship’s company had turned out, every man took his station calmly and in obedience to orders.

The captain, followed by several of his officers, went down to the cockpit, from whence issued clouds of smoke.  Every effort was made to extinguish the flames in that part of the ship, but they increased so rapidly, it soon became impossible for any one to remain below.  Several of the men who were throwing down water fell from suffocation with the buckets in their hands.  To give more air to the men so employed, the lower-deck ports were hauled up; but this rather increasing than diminishing the density of the smoke, they were closed again, and the after-hatchway shut down.  The carpenter’s attempt to scuttle the after-part of the ship was also ineffectual.

Ten or fifteen minutes only had elapsed after the first alarm had been given, before the flames raged with such fury, that it was impossible to hoist out the boats; the jolly-boat had fortunately been lowered in obedience to the captain’s orders when he first went upon deck.  As the flames burst up the main-hatchway, dividing the fore from the after-part of the ship, the captain ordered all hands to the forecastle, and seeing that it was utterly beyond human power to prevent the destruction of the vessel, he desired every man to provide for his own safety.

The silent plague through the green timber eats,
And vomits out a tardy flame by fits;
Down to the keels, and upwards to the sails,
The fire descends, or mounts, but still prevails;
Nor buckets pour’d, nor strength of human hand,
Can the victorious element withstand. 

                                            DRYDEN’S AEneid, Book V.

The luckless ship was now wrapped in flames from amidships to taffrail, and the scene of horror is beyond the powers of description.  Hundreds of human beings were assembled together on the forecastle, bowsprit, and sprit-sail-yard.  No boat had yet come to their assistance.  Their perilous situation had levelled all distinction of rank; men and officers were huddled together, watching with despairing hearts the progress of the fiery element, which threatened to hurry them so quickly into eternity.  Volumes of black smoke rose in huge pillars from all parts of the ship, whilst far above the hissing and crackling of the flames, as they ricked the masts and rigging, rose the shrieks and death yells of the hapless men, who, unable to gain the forecastle, had sought safety aloft, where the flames had now reached them.