Page:Surprising life and sufferings of Peter Williamson.pdf/8

 such time as they had got in their loading with a compliment of unhappy youths, for carrying on their wicked commerce.

In about a month’s time the ship set sail for America; and although we were eleven weeks on our voyage, no occurrence worth notice happened till we arrived on the coast we were destined for, a hard gale of wind sprung up from the S. E. and, to the captain’s great surprise (about twelve o’clock at night) the ship struck on a sand bank off Cape May, near the capes of Delaware, and to the great terror and affright of the ship’s company, in a short time was almost full of water, boat was then hoisted out, into which the captain and his fellow-villains, the crew got with some difficulty, leaving me and my deluded companions to perish, as they then naturally concluded inevitable death to be our fate. Thus abandoned and deserted without the least prospect of relief, and threatened every moment with death, did these villains leave us. The cries, the shrieks, and tears of a parcel of infants, had no effect on or caused the least remorse in the breasts of these merciless wretches. The ship being on a sand bank, which did not give way to let her deeper, we lay in the same deplorable condition until morning, when, though we saw the land of Cape May, at about a mile’s distance, we knew not what would be our fate.

The wind at length abated, and the captain (unwilling to lose all her cargo) about 10 o’clock sent some of his crew in a boat to the ship’s side to bring us on shore, where we lay in a sort of a camp made of the sails of the vessel and such other things as they could