Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 2.djvu/105

 but it was proposed to throw them overboard; and as it was a matter of life and death, we succeeded. Still she lay like a log, and would not right, and settled down in a very alarming manner. The violence of the hurricane was unabated, and the general feeling seemed to be, "To prayers!—to prayers!—all lost!"

The fore and main-masts still stood, supporting the weight of rigging and wreck which hung to them, and which, like a powerful lever, pressed the labouring ship down on her side. To disengage this enormous top hamper, was to us an object more to be desired than expected. Yet the case was desperate, and.a desperate effort was to be made, or in half an hour we should have been past praying for, except by a Roman Catholic priest. The danger of sending a man aloft was so imminent, that the captain would not order one on this service; but calling the ship's company on the quarter-deck, pointed to the impending wreck, and by signs and gestures, and hard bawling, convinced them that