S80 
GREENLAND VOYAGE. 
of three or four miles. The weather now begin¬ 
ning to moderate, we were enabled, with such a 
good laud-mark, to bear away to the southward ; 
and under such improved prospects, that the pain¬ 
ful anxiety continued through a night of extra¬ 
ordinary danger, at once gave place to feelings of 
gratitude, and almost turbulent exhilaration *. 
The barometer again proved a faithful moni¬ 
tor. It fell to 28.5, a little before the commence¬ 
ment of the gale, and steadily maintained its 
level, until the tremendous fury of the eveniug 
storm had overtaken us: it then began to rise, 
and anticipated the amendment of the weather in 
a regular proportion. At 4 a. M. of the 12th, it 
* In this, and several other instances, that placed me in cir¬ 
cumstances of danger diming this voyage, I have frankly ex¬ 
pressed my feelings when my life has been in peril. This is, 
perhaps, not the usual practice with those engaged in naval 
affairs, as it might he construed, by illiberal persons, into a 
deficiency of personal courage; but I make no scruple in as¬ 
serting, that there is much affectation and insincerity in the 
words of one, who, in a case of known danger, where the 
mind has no other occupation than its contemplation, can 
set lightly by the value of his life. True religion is, doubt¬ 
less, the only principle that can enable a man, conscious of 
his situation, and of the importance and reality of a future 
state, to meet death with calmness and fortitude. If such 
feelings are otherwise experienced in the deliberate expec¬ 
tation of death, they can only be attributed either to insen¬ 
sibility, or to some other false principle of repose. 
