Page:Paine--Lost ships and lonely seas.djvu/355

Rh stancy of the Elements they converse with in pursuit of their lawful employments; and consequently ought to lead the most considerate, religious lives in order to face death, if it be God's Will, in the most dreadful form, with a Christian resolution. For, as to that set of men who affect to pass for Wits and Bravoes by giving a ludicrous turn to everything grave and solemn; and assuming an air of intrepidity, by horrid oaths and imprecations, before the too near approaches of danger, I have always observed them, first of all others, to sink under despair, upon a prospect of inevitable death; even so as shamefully to desert all the necessary means that offered for a possibility of their deliverance.

The Nottingham Galley, a small vessel of one hundred and twenty tons, sailed from London on September 25, 1710, touching at Ireland to take on some butter and cheese besides her cargo of cordage and general merchandise, which was consigned to Boston. She carried a crew of fourteen men and mounted ten guns as a proper precaution against pirates and privateers. Against the westerly winds of autumn the ship made crawling progress, and it was almost three months later before Captain Deane made a landfall on the snow-covered coast of New England. He did not know where he was and thick weather shut down so that for twelve days longer he was battering about and trying to work a safe distance offshore. The chronometer was then unknown, the "hog-yoke," or early quadrant, had