EXAMINATION OF REID'S STORMS. 191 



anchors ahead ; continued very heavy gales with hard rain. 

 At 4, let go another anchor. At 3.30, both sheet and bower 

 anchors came home ; veered away the clink round the mast, 

 when the best cable parted, and then immediately the sheet 

 cable parted likewise. At 5, she was driving on shore very 

 fast, when a gust of wind laid her down, with the comings 

 of the hatchway in the water. By consent of the captain 

 and officers, cut away the weather halyard to the main 

 shrowds, when the main-mast went about twenty feet above 

 deck; she immediately righted, and drove broad-side on 

 shore, abreast of the town ; the sea making a free passage 

 over us, when our boat went to pieces along side. At 5.30, 

 cut the bower cable to let her swing end on. About 6, it 

 fell calm for half an hour, when the wind shifted round to 

 S. W., blowing a hurricane with strong flashes of lightning. 

 At 10, it became quite moderate. 



The Phoenix, off Port Antonio. When the Phoenix was 

 in company with the Barbadoes, off Port Antonio, the wind 

 began to blow, with a stormy appearance, to the eastward, 

 about 11, at night, of the 2d of October, and the Phoenix 

 then close reefed her top-sails. At 8, on the morning of the 

 3d, the wind was E. N. E., with occasional heavy squalls; 

 and Sir Hyde Parker, who commanded the Phoenix, re- 

 marked that the weather had the same appearance as he 

 had observed in the commencement of a hurricane in the 

 East Indies. He then ordered the top-sails to be taken in, 

 arid wore the ship, in order to keep mid channel between 

 Jamaica and Cuba. At 2, P. M., the Phoenix lay-to, with 

 a storm mizzen stay-sail, and her head to the northward. 

 When night set in, the storm increased with great violence. 

 At midnight, the wind was south east, and the ship draw- 

 ing upon Cuba, Sir Hyde Parker determined to wear her, 

 but no canvass could withstand the wind at this time, and 

 she was wore by sending two hundred of the crew into the 

 fore-rigging. When about to cut away the masts, the ship 



