156 
LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 
part of their strength. We were sorry we had not 
a dozen more for their sake.” On Easter Day, Adrian 
Carman, of Schiedam, their clerk, dies. “ The Lord 
have mercy upon his soul, and upon us all, we being 
very sick.” During the next few days they seem 
all to have got rapidly worse; one only is strong 
enough to move about. He has learnt writing 
from his comrades since coming to the island ; 
and it is he who concludes the melancholy story. 
“ The 23d (April), the wind blew from the same 
corner, with small rain. We were by this time re¬ 
duced to a very deplorable state, there being none 
of them all, except myself, that were able to help 
themselves, much less one another, so that the whole 
burden lay upon my shoulders,—and I perform my 
duty as well as I am able, as long as God pleases 
to give me strength. I am just now a-going to help 
our commander out of his cabin, at his request, 
because he imagined by this change to ease his 
pain, he then struggling with death.” For seven 
days this gallant fellow goes on “ striving to do his 
duty;” that is to say, making entries in the journal 
as to the state of the weather, that being the prin- 
