LOSS OF THE CENTAUR. 153 
LOSS OF HIS MAJESTY'S SHIP CENTAUR, 
Of Seventy-four Guns, September 2od, 1782; and the Mira- 
culous Preservation of the Phniace, with the Captain^ 
Master, and ten of the Crew. By Captai?i Inglefield, 
After the decisive engagement in the West-Indies, on the 
glorious 12th of April, 1782, when the French fleet under 
Count de Grasse was defeated by Admiral Sir George Rod- 
ney, several of the captured ships, beside many others, were 
either lost or disabled, on their homeward bound passage, 
with a large convoy. Among those lost was the Centaur of 
seventy-four guns, whose commander. Captain Inglefield, with 
the master and ten of the crew, experienced a most providen- 
tial escape from the general fate. 
The captain's narrative affords the best explanation of the 
manner and means by which this signal deliverance was ef- 
fected. Those only who are personally involved in such a 
calamity can describe their sensations with full energy, and 
fiirnish, in such detail, those trials of the heart which never 
fail to interest. 
The Centaur (says Captain Inglefield) left Jamaica in ra- 
ther a leaky condition, keeping two hand-pumps going, and 
when it blew fresh, sometimes a spell with a chain- pump was 
necessary. But I had no apprehension that the ship was not 
able to encounter a common gale of wind. 
In the evening of the 16th of September, when the fatal 
gale came on, the ship was prepared for the worst weather 
usually met in those latitudes; the mainsail was reefed and 
set, the top-gallant mast struck, and the mizen-yard lowered 
down, though at that time it did not blow very strong. Toward 
midnight ii blew a gale of wind, and the ship made so much 
water that I was obliged to turn all hands to spell the pumps. 
The leak still increasing, I had thought to try the ship before 
the sea. Happy I should have been, perhaps, had I in this 
been determined. The impropriety of leaving the convoy, 
except in the last extremity, and the hopes of the weather 
growing moderate, weighed against the opinion that it was 
right. 
About two in the morning the wind lulled, and we flattered 
ourselves the gale was breaking. Soon after we had much 
thunder and lightning from the south-east, with rain, when it 
began to blow strong in gusts of wind, which obliged me to 
