Page:Wonderful and surprising narrative of Capt. John Inglefield.pdf/2



HE Centaur left Jamaica in rather a leaky condition, keeping two hand-pumps going, and when it blew fresh, sometimes a spell with a chain-pump was necessary; but I had no apprehension that the ship was not able to encounter a common gale of wind.

In the evening of the 16th of September, when the fatal gale came on, the ship was prepared for the worst weather usually met with in these latitudes: the mainsail was reesed and set, the top gallant masts struck, and the mizzen-yard lowered down, though at that time it did not blow very strong. Towards midnight it blew a gale of wind, and the ship made so much water, that I was obliged to turn all hands up to spell the pumps; the leak still increasing, I had thoughts to try the ship before the sea, happy I should be determined: the impropriety of leaving the Convoy, except in the last extremity, and the hope of the weather's growing moderate, weighed against the opinion that it was right. About two in the morning the wind lulled, and we flattered ourselves the gale was breaking.

Soon after, we had much thunder and lightning from the S. E. when it began to blow strong in gusts of wind, which obliged me to haul the main-sail up, the ship being then under bare poles; this was scarcely done when a gust of wind, exceeding in violence every thing of the kind I had ever seen, or had any conception of, laid the ship upon her beam-ends, they forsook the hold, and appeared between decks, so as to fill the men’s hammocks to leeward; the ship lay motionless, and to all appearance irrecoverably overset; the water increasing fast, forced through the cells of the ports; from the pressure of the ship I gave immediate directions to cut away the