Page:Life and unparalleled adventures of Ambrose Gwinnett.pdf/22

 22 ADVENTURES OF above the water as well as I could, though I had no hopes of saving my life. My first attempt was to swim after the ship; but, finding that impracticable, I turned about, and I believe I had swam for three- quarters of an hour, when, being very faint and weak, I began to put up my last prayer to God, and deter- mined to commit myself to the bottom of the deep : but, at that instant, turning my head a little aside, I saw, at a small distance from me, what at first I took for a barrel; but what was my joy and astonishment, when, coming near, I perceived it to be one of our own boats, which had been washed overboard the night before, and, to complete my joy, the oars were lashed to the seat! Almost spent, as I was, I made shift to get upon it, and here I saw myself freed in a mira- culous manner from the fury of the waves; but, at the same time, I found myself in an open boat, at - least sixty leagues from land, without a compass, or any kind of nourishment whatever, unless I might call tobacco some, which I found in a box in one of my waistcoat pockets; and I believe in my con- science that it afforded me a nourishment which, in a great measure, helped to preserve me. It was a very great blessing for me that moderate weather followed the tempest, by which means I was enabled to keep the boat tolerably steady. I could not be less than thirty hours in that situation, wherfi I was taken by a Spanish carrick; but I can hardly in reckon that among my fortunate accidents ; for, or the same day that I entered the ship, one of the menu while I was asleep, hanging up my clothes among the shrouds to dry, emptied my pockets, and finding series veral papers relative to the pirates' affairs, on arriv- ing at Port-Royal, whither they were bound, the line seized me as one of the desperate gang. I must observe to you, that, when I first went into the ship, I gave a false account of myself, which oc- casioned my ruin; for, now confessing the truth, an telling them that I had been forced into the pirate