LOSS, BY FIRE, OF THE PRINCE. 171 
suffocated, others mangled, half-burned, and still preserving 
sufficient life to be sensible of the accumulated horrors of 
their fate. 
Through the mercy of heaven I retained my fortitude, and 
proposed to make toward the fragments of the wreck to seek 
provisions and to pick up any other articles we might Avant. 
We were totally unprovided, and were in danger of perishing 
with famine ; a death more tedious and more painful than that 
of our companions. We found several barrels, in which we 
hoped to find a resource against this pressing necessity, but 
discovered, to our mortification, that it was part of the powder 
which had been thrown overboard during the conflagration. 
Night approached, but we providentially found a cask of 
brandy, about fifteen pounds of salt pork, a piece of scarlet 
cloth, twenty yards of linen, a dozen of pipe-staves, and a few 
ropes. It grew dark, and we could not wait till day-light, in 
our present situation, without exposing ourselves a hundred 
times to destruction among the fragments of the wreck, from 
which we had not yet been able to disengage ourselves. We 
therefore rowed away from them as speedily as possible in 
order to attend to the equipment of our new vessel. Every 
one fell to work with the utmost assiduity; w^e employed every 
thing, and took off the inner sheathing of our boat for the sake 
of the planks and nails ; we drew from the linen what thread 
we wanted ; fortunately one of the sailors had two needles ; 
our scarlet cloth served us for a sail, an oar for a mast, and 
a plank for a rudder. Notwithstanding the darkness, our 
equipment was in a short time as complete as circumstances 
would permit. The only difficulty that remained was how to 
direct our course; we had neither charts nor instruments, 
and were nearly two hundred leagues from land. We resign- 
ed ourselves to the Almighty, whose assistance we implored 
in fervent prayers. 
At length we raised our sail, and a favorable wind removed 
us for ever from the floating corpses of our unfortunate com- 
panions. In this manner we proceeded eight days and eight 
nights without perceiving land, exposed, stark naked, to the 
burning rays of the sun by day, and to intense cold by night. 
The sixth day a shower of rain inspired us with the hope of 
some relief from the thirst by which we were tormented; we 
endeavored to catch the little water that fell in our mouths and 
hands. We sucked our sail, but having been before soaked 
in sea-water, it communicated the bitter taste of the latter to 
the rain which it received. If, however, the rain had been 
