1770' ROUND THE WORLD. 141 



a little higher up the harbour, to a place which I 

 thought most convenient for laying her ashore, in 

 order to stop the leak. Her draught of water for- 

 ward was now seven feet nine inches, and abaft 

 thirteen feet six inches. At eight o'clock, it being 

 high-water, I hauled her bow close ashore ; but kept 

 her stern afloat, because I was afraid of neiping her ; 

 it was however necessary to lay the whole of her as 

 near the ground as possible. 



At two o'clock in the morning of the 22d, the 

 tide left her, and gave us an opportunity to examine 

 the leak, which we found to be at her floor heads, a 

 little before the starboard fore-chains. In this place 

 the rocks had made their way through four planks, 

 and even into the timbers ; three more planks 

 were much damaged, and the appearance of these 

 breaches was very extraordinary : there was not a 

 splinter to be seen, but all was as smooth, as if the 

 whole had been cut away by an instrument : the 

 timbers in this place were happily very close, and if 

 they had not, it would have been absolutely im- 

 possible to have saved the ship. But after all, her 

 preservation depended upon a circumstance still more 

 remarkable : one of the holes, which was big enough 

 to have sunk us, if we had had eight pumps instead 

 of four, and been able to keep them incessantly 

 going, was in great measure plugged up by a frag- 

 ment of the rock, which, after having made the 

 wound, was left sticking in it ; so that the water 

 which at first had gained upon our pumps, was what 

 came in at the interstices, between the stone and the 

 edges of the hole that received it. We found also 

 several pieces of the fothering, which had made their 

 way between the timbers, and in a great measure 

 stopped those parts of the leak which the stone had 

 left open. Upon further examination, we found 

 that, besides the leak, considerable damage had been 

 done to the bottom ; great part of the sheathing 

 was gone from under the larboard bow; a consider- 



