Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/273

 so increased as to cause apprehensions of great danger. By three o’clock the old ship might be said to be riding in breakers of gigantic size. The estimated height of these breakers was over thirty odd feet. At eight bells, four o’clock, one of these huge breakers struck the ship  broad on the larboard bow with such force as to sweep

THE VINCENNES ON THE BAR.

the spar deck fore and aft. The boats and booms were broken adrift, the boats stove in, and the spars and every  other movable thing were washed from one side of the  deck to the other.

One of the marines, Joseph Allshouse, was struck by a spar, and died in a few hours. By eight o’clock the swell abated and the rollers ceased to break. A light breeze sprung up, when we got under way and stood for  the Bay of Monterey. At two o’clock all hands were called to bury the dead. The body was carried to the