Page:Account of the bravery and happy death of James Covey.pdf/2

 he endeavoured to blot out the impressions from his memory, and the recollection of his sins from his conscience, by drinking and blasphemous intercourse with the ship's company. His efforts, however, were in vain. The thoughts of his sins, of God, and of death, harassed his mind day and night, and filled him with gloomy forebodings of what awaited him in this world and in the next, till the sight of the Dutch fleet, and their conversation with each other concerning the herioeheroic [sic] achievements they should perform, dispelled the gloomy subject from his mind. As the two fleets were coming in action, the noble Admiral, to save the lives of his men, ordered them to lie flat on the deck, till, being nearer the enemy, their firing might do the more execution. The Dutch ships at this time were pouring their broadsides into the Venerable as she passed down part of the Dutch fleet, in order to break their line. The stout-hearted and wicked Covey, having lost all the impressions of his former reflections, heaped, in rapid succession, the most dreadful imprecations on the eyes, and limbs, and souls of what he called his cowardly shipmates, for lying down to avoid the balls of the Dutch. He refused to obey the order, till, fearing the authority of an officer not far from him, he in part complied, by leaning over a cask which stood near, till the word of command was given to fire. At the moment of rising, a bar-shot carried away one of his legs and the greater part of the other; but, so instantaneous was the stroke, though he was sensible of something like a jar in his limbs, he knew not that he had lost a leg till his stump came to the deck, and he fell. When his legs were amputated higher up, and the noise of the battle had ceased, he thought of his dream; and expected, that as one part of it was fulfilled, the other would be so too. Indeed, considering the pain of amputating and dressing both legs, and the agitation of his mind from fearing the full accomplishment of his dream, it appears next to a miracle that he retained his reason in the most perfect state: but this was to be explained to him at a future period. Some time after, he came out of Haslar Hospital, capable of walking by means of two wooden legs and two crutches; but his spirits were sorely dejected, from fearing that as his sins had brought upon him the judgment of God in the loss of his limbs, they would bring upon him the loss of his reason, and the loss of his soul.