LOSS OF THE KENT. 23 
ed up between the returning waves to prevent absolute suffo- 
cation below, where the men were so closely packed together 
that the steam arising from their respiration excited at one 
time an apprehension that the vessel was on fire ; while the 
impurity of the air they were inhaling became so marked, 
that the lights occasionally carried down among them Avere 
almost instantly extinguished. Nor was the condition of the 
hundreds who covered the deck less wretched than that of 
their comrades below ; since they were obliged, night and 
day, to stand shivering, in their wet and nearly naked state, 
ankle deep in water.* 
Our only hope amid these great and accumulating miseries 
was, that the same compassionate Providence which had al- 
ready so marvelously interposed on our behalf, would not 
permit the wind to abate or change until we reached some 
friendly port ; for we were all convinced that a delay of a 
very few days longer at sea must inevitably involve us in fa- 
mine, pestilence, and a complication of the most dreadful evils. 
Our hopes were not disappointed. The gale continued with 
even increasing violence ; and our able captain, crowding all 
sail at the risk of carrying away his masts, so nobly urged 
his vessel onward, that in the afternoon of Thursday the 3d, 
the delightful exclamation from aloft Avas heard, " Land 
ahead!" In the evening Ave descried the Scilly lights; and 
running rapidly along the Cornish coast, we joyfully cast 
anchor in Falmouth harbor, about half past 12 o'clock on the 
following morning. 
* In addition to those Av^ho At'ere naked on board the Kent at the mo- 
ment the alarm of fire was heard, seA^eral indiA'iduals afterward threw 
off their clothes, to enable them the more easily to SAV^im to the boats. 
I 
