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228 that there was no risk knowingly incurred. Out of respect to the dead and the living, and for the sake of those for whose breasts this heavy blow was preparing, it was unanimously decided that all that decency could suggest should be done. He might not be of our faith — he might not have lived and died to the Lord: our duty as men was clear; and for the rest, we left judgment to Him that judgeth righteously.

At sunrise the small crew clustered round the mainmast, and the passengers under the roundhouse. The ensign of the United States, with its stars and stripes, floated halfway up the rigging; and the ship was kept under easy sail on the fresh but favourable breeze which had sprung up after the squall. The sky was without a cloud. In the absence of a clergyman of any church, the duty of reading the service over the body was imposed upon me. I never heard that exquisitely beautiful portion of the ritual of the Church of England read without emotion, and none need wonder that I felt my voice tremble, as now, in the face of the broad blue sky, and amid the world of waters, I was called to utter its solemn strain over the lifeless remains of the companion who had thus been suddenly taken away while we were left. Others may have forgotten the incident long ago — I never can forget it. Yet the circumstances were such as sobered the most unreflecting for the time. All saw before them a striking proof that "Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery!" and that "In the midst of live we are in death."

Thus we committed the body of our fellow mortal to the deep, to be turned into corruption: looking for the resurrection of the body, when the sea shall give up her dead.