PORTER to' JOURIsAL. 



73 



provisions was barely sufficient to satisfy the cravings of 

 nature ; and as to refreshments of any kind, they were en- 

 tirely out of the question, our scanty supply obtained at 

 St. Catharines having been long consumed. The fatigues 

 of the officers and crew (although I endeavoured to alle- 

 viate them as much as possible, by only keeping the watch 

 on deck) were very considerable ; for deceitful intervals 

 of moderate weather would for a moment encourage us to 

 make sail ; when, in a few minutes afterwards, blasts, ac- 

 companied with rain and hail, would threaten destruction 

 to our sails and spars ; and as our necessities, and the state 

 of the ship, made it requisite that we should endeavour to 

 make our passage as short as possible, by taking advantage 

 of every favourable opportunity of getting along, we were 

 constantly harassed by making and taking in sail. To be 

 sure we had not much to take in, but what we had Were 

 heavy, and required all hands to manage them. It had 

 been some time since we had laid aside all our small sails ; 

 such as top-gallant-sails, studding-sails, stay-sails, &:c. ; the 

 constant gales we had experienced, and having no expec- 

 tation of better weather, had induced me to have them all 

 unbent, and stowed away below ; as also to get from aloft 

 all the booms and rigging. Indeed, our topsails, courses, 

 and storm-staysails, were the only sails that we were at 

 any time enabled to use ; and it was rarely that they could 

 be set without being reefed. After this reduction of 

 weight from aloft, we found the ship to strain less ; for, al- 

 though in her form was combined all the qualities necessa- 

 ry to constitute what seamen call, a good sea-boat ; yet, 

 we found she was not proof against the effect of the vio- 

 lent and dangerous winds, for which this sea is so justly 

 noted. Her water-ways began to grow more open, and her 

 upper works to work considerably ; and had she not those 

 qualities above mentioned, in a remarkable degree, it is 

 likely we should not have escaped some serious disaster, 

 or at least without the loss of some of our masts or bow- 

 sprit, which, from violent rolling and pitching, were fre- 

 quently endangered. 



However, with great industry, much care, and extraor- 

 dinary good fortune, we had succeeded in getting, as I be- 

 fore observed, by our reckoning, as far to the westward as 

 77" west longitude ; and this, too, we had effected by con^ 



VOL^ I, 10 



