It was the 15th of August, in the evening, before the Gloucester was cleared of every thing that was proposed to be removed; and though the hold was now almost full of water, yet, as the carpenters were of opinion that she might still swim for some time, if the calm should continue, and the water become smooth, she was set on fire; for we knew not how near we might now be to the island of Guam, which was in the possession of our enemies, and the wreck of such a ship would have been to them no contemptible acquisition.  When she was set on fire, Captain Mitchel and his officers left her, and came on board the Centurion:  And we immediately stood from the wreck, not without some apprehensions (as we had now only a light breeze) that if she blew up soon, the concussion of the air might damage our rigging; but she fortunately burnt, though very fiercely, the whole night, her guns firing successively, as the flames reached them.  And it was six in the morning, when we were about four leagues distant, before she blew up; the report she made upon this occasion was but a small one, but there was an exceeding black pillar of smoke, which shot up into the air to a very considerable height.

Thus perished his majesty’s ship the Gloucester.  And now it might have been expected, that, being freed from, the embarrassments which her frequent disasters had involved us in, we would proceed on our way much brisker than, we had hitherto done, especially as we had received some small addition to our strength, by the taking on board the Gloucester’s crew; but our anxieties were not yet to be relieved; for, notwithstanding all that we had hitherto suffered, there remained much greater distresses, which we were still to struggle with.  For the late storm, which had proved so fatal to the Gloucester, had driven us to the northward of our intended course; and the current setting the same way, after the weather abated, had forced us still a degree or two farther, so that we were now in 17 deg. 1/4 of north latitude, instead of being in 13 deg. 1/2, which was the parallel we proposed to keep, in order to reach the island of Guam:  And as it had been a perfect calm for some days since the cessation of the storm, and we were ignorant how near we were to the meridian of the Ladrones, and supposed ourselves not to be far from it, we apprehended that we might be driven to the leeward of them by the current, without discovering them:  In this case, the only land we could make would be some of the eastern parts of Asia, where, if we could arrive, we should find the western monsoon in its full force, so that it would be impossible for the stoutest best-manned ship to get in.  And this coast being removed between four and five hundred leagues farther, we, in our languishing circumstances, could expect no other than to be destroyed by the scurvy, long before the most favourable gale could carry us to such a distance:  For our deaths were now extremely alarming, no day passing in which