PORTERS JOURNAL, 
86 
served for the last extremity), and now patiently waited for the 
tempest to lull. It had already blown three days without abating; 
the ship had resisted its violence to the astonishment of all, with- 
out having received any considerable injury ; and we began to 
hope, from her buoyancy, and other good qualities, we should be 
enabled to weather the gale. We had shipped several heavy seas, 
that would have proved destructive to almost any other ship ; but, 
to us, they were attended with no other inconveniences, than the 
momentary alarm they excited, and that arising from the im¬ 
mense quantity of water, which forced its way into every part of 
the ship, and kept every thing afloat between decks. However, 
about 3 o’clock of the morning of the 3d, the watch only be¬ 
ing on deck, an enormous sea broke over the ship, and for an in¬ 
stant destroyed every hope. Our gun-deck ports were burst in ; 
both boats on the quarters stove ; our spare spars washed from the 
chains ; our head-rails washed away, and hammock stanchions 
burst in ; and the ship perfectly deluged and water logged, imme¬ 
diately after this tremendous shock, which threw the crew into 
consternation. The gale began to abate, and in the morning we 
were enabled to set our reefed fore-sail. In the height of the 
gale, Lewis Price, a marine, who had long been confined with a 
pulmonary complaint, departed this life, and was this morning 
committed to the deep ; but the violence of the sea was such, 
that the crew could not be permitted to come on deck, to attend 
the ceremony of his burial, as their weight would have strained 
and endangered the safety of the ship. 
When this last sea broke on board us, one of the prisoners, 
the boatswain of the Nocton, through excess of alarm, exclaimed, 
that the ship’s broadside was stove in, and that she was sinking; 
this alarm was greatly calculated to increase the fears of those 
below, who, from the immense torrent of water that was rushing 
down the hatchways, had reason to believe the truth of his asser¬ 
tion ; many who were washed from the spar to the gun-deck, and 
from their hammocks, and did not know the extent of the injury, 
were also greatly alarmed ; but the men at the wheel, and some 
others, who were enabled by a good grasp to keep their stations, 
distinguished themselves by their coolness and activity after the 
