PAUL AND VIRGINIA. I 59 



and it's channel. The Saint-Gerand was then 

 plainly defcried, her deck crowded with people, 

 her yards and round -tops lowered, her flag hoifted, 

 four cables on her fore-caftle, and one to keep her 

 fafl a-ftern. She had anchored between the Ifle of 

 Amber and the main land, within the fhelvy en- 

 clofure, which furrounds the Ifle of France, and 

 which fhe had weathered through a channel that 

 no veflTel had ever pafTed before. She prefented 

 her bows to the billows, which rolled on from the 

 main Ocean ; and at every furge which forced it's 

 way into the channel, her prow was elevated to 

 fuch a height, that her keel was perceptible in the 

 airj but, by this motion, her ftern, plunging 

 downward, difappeared from view, to it's very 

 carved work, as if it had been entirely fwallowed 

 up. In this firuation, in which the winds and the 

 waves were driving her toward the fliore, it was 

 equally impoffible to return through the track by 

 which Ihe had entered, or, by cutting her cables, 

 to run a-ground upon the flaore, from which fhe 

 was feparated by a deep bottom, fown thick with 

 fhelving rocks. Every billow which broke againft 

 the coaft, ruflied on, roaring, to the very bottom 

 of the bay, and tolled the pebbles more than fifty 

 feet up the (hore ; then, retiring backwards, dif- 

 covered a great part of it's bed, the ftones of which 

 were dalhed backward and forward, with a rough: 

 and horrible noile. The fea,,fvvelled by the winds,;- 



increafed 



