158 . LOSS OF THE CENTAUR. 
the following- day, and at least save the people on some of the 
Western Islands.* Had we any other ship in company with 
us I should have thought it my duty to have quitted the Cen- 
taur this day. 
This night the people got some rest by relieving the watch- 
es; but in the morning of the 21st we had the mortification 
to find that the weather again threatened, and by noon it blew 
a gale. The ship labored greatly, and the water appeared 
in the fore and after hold, and increased. The carpenter 
also informed me that the leathers were nearly consumed ; 
and likewise that the chains of the pumps, by constant exer- 
tion and the friction of the coals, were considered as nearly 
useless. 
As we had now no other resource but bailing, I gave orders 
that scuttles should be cut through the decks to introduce 
more buckets in the hold ; and all the sail-makers were em- 
ployed, night and day, in making canvass buckets: and the 
orlop-deck having fallen in on the larboard side, I ordered the 
sheet cable to be roused overboard. The wind at this time 
was at west, and being on the larboard tack, many schemes 
had been practiced to wear the ship, that we might drive into 
a less boisterous latitude, as well as approach the Western 
Islands ; but none succeeded: and having a weak carpenter's 
crew, they were hardly sufficient to attend to the pumps ; so 
that we could not make any progress with the steering ma- 
chine. Another sail had been thrummed and got over, but 
we did not find its use ; indeed there was no prospect but in 
a change of weather. A large leak had been discovered and 
stopt in the fore-hold, and another in the lady's hole ; but the 
ship appeared so weak from her laboring, that it was clear 
she could not last long. The after cock-pit had fallen in, the 
fore cock-pit the same, with all the store-rooms down; the 
stern-post was so loose, that as the ship rolled, the water 
rushed in on either side in great streams, which we could 
not stop. 
Night came on, Avith the same dreary prospect as on the 
preceding, and was passed in continual efforts of labor. Morn- 
ijig came, (the 2'2d,) without our seeing any thing, or any 
change of weather, and the day was spent with the same 
struggles to keep the ship above water, pumping and bailing 
at the hatch-waj^s and scuttles. Toward night another of 
the chain pumps was rendered quite useless, by one of the 
rollers being displaced at the bottom of the pump, and this 
* The Azores. 
L 
