286 CAPTAIN CARTWRIGHT'S 



fleet of eighty-four sail of merchant ships, must 

 necessarily take a long time to get out; or they 

 would fall on board of each other; and I saw sev- 

 eral do so. We expected that the admiral would 

 heave to for the remainder of the night, when he 

 had got to a proper distance from the land; yet 

 although we carried sail the whole night, and every 

 day and night after, with very strong and heavy 

 gales (in which we split the head of our rudder; 

 strained the ship so, that she leaked very much, 

 which she had never done before; split some of 

 her sails to pieces, and were most of the time 

 nearly under water, by cariying to such extrem- 

 ity) we saw nothing more of the admiral or the 

 fleet, until the morning of the twelfth; when we 

 discovered them about four leagues off upon our 

 weather bow. At eight o 'clock, we saw some guns 

 fired by a ship, which we supposed to be the ad- 

 miral, but could not tell the meaning of them. 

 We continued to carry every sail which could 

 stand, and threw out a signal for seeing a strange 

 vessel, but no notice was taken of it; nor did the 

 admiral shorten sail in the evening to collect his 

 fleet, although other vessels, as well as mine, were 

 far astern and one large ship a great way to lee- 

 ward. That night, and the following day proving 

 foggy, we never saw him or the fleet afterwards. 

 We had every day from leaving St. John's seen 

 several unfortunate vessels, who like ourselves, 

 had been left behind; and we continued to do the 

 same, for above half the voyage after. We still 

 carried sail to the very utmost extremity for many 



