man-of-war, one of a squadron badly found
and provided in all respects, sailing from
England for South America, was wrecked on
the coast of Patagonia. She was commanded
by a brutal though bold captain, and manned
by a turbulent crew, most of whom were
exasperated to a readiness for all mutiny by
having been pressed in the Downs, in the
hour of their arrival at home from long and
hard service. When the ship struck, they
broke open the officers' chests, dressed themselves
in the officers' uniforms, and got drunk
in the old, Smollett manner. About a
hundred and fifty of them made their way ashore,
and divided into parties. Great distress was
experienced from want of food, and one of the
boys, " having picked up the liver of one of
the drowned men whose carcase had been
dashed to pieces against the rocks, could be
with difficulty withheld from making a meal
of it." One man, in a quarrel, on a spot
which, in remembrance of their sufferings
there, they called Mount Misery, stabbed
another mortally, and left him dead on the
ground. Though a third of the whole number
were no more, chiefly through want, in eight or
ten weeks; and though they had in the meantime
eaten a midshipman's dog, and were now
glad to feast on putrid morsels of seal that
had been thrown away; certain men came
back to this Mount Misery, expressly to give
this body (which throughout had remained
untouched), decent burial: assigning their
later misfortunes " to their having neglected
this necessary tribute." Afterwards, in an
open-boat navigation, when rowers died
at their oars of want and its attendant
weakness, and there was nothing to serve out
but bits of rotten seal, the starving crew went
ashore to bury the bodies of their dead
companions, in the sand. At such a condition did
even these ill-nurtured, ill-commanded, ill-
used men arrive, without appealing to the
"last resource," that they were so much
emaciated " as hardly to have the shape of
men," while the captain's legs " resembled
posts, though his body appeared to be
nothing but skin and bone," and he had
fallen into that feeble state of intellect
that he had positively forgotten his own
name.

ln the same reign, an East Indiaman, bound
from Surat to Mocha and Jidda in the Dead
Sea, took fire when two hundred leagues
distant from the nearest land, which was the
coast of Malabar. The mate and ninety-five
other people, white, brown, and black, found
themselves in the long-boat, with this voyage
before them, and neither water nor provisions
on board. The account of the mate who
conducted the boat, day and night, is, " We were
never hungry, though our thirst was extreme.
On the seventh day, our throats and tongues
swelled to such a degree, that we conveyed
our meaning by signs. Sixteen died on that
day, and almost the whole people became
silly, and began to die laughing. I earnestly
petitioned God that I might continue in my
senses to my end, which He was pleased to
grant: I being the only person on the eighth
day that preserved them. Twenty more
died that day. On the ninth I observed land,
which overcame my senses, and I fell into a
swoon with thankfulness of joy." Again no
last resource, and can the reader doubt that
they would all have died without it?

In the same reign, and within a few years
of the same date, the Philip Aubin, bark
of eighty tons, bound from Barbadoes to
Surinam, broached-to at sea, and foundered.
The captain, the mate, and two seamen, got
clear of the wreck and into " a small boat
twelve or thirteen feet long." In
accomplishing this escape, they all, but particularly
the captain, showed great coolness, courage,
sense, and resignation. They took the
captain's dog on board, and picked up thirteen
onions which floated out of the ship, after she
went down. They had no water, no mast,
sail, or oars; nothing but the boat, what they
wore, and a knife. The boat had sprung a
leak, which was stopped with a shirt. They
cut pieces of wood from the boat itself, which
they made into a mast; they rigged the mast
with strips of the shirt; and they hoisted a
pair of wide trousers for a sail. The little
boat being cut down almost to the water's edge,
they made a bulwark against the sea, of their
own backs. The mate steered with a top-
mast he had pushed before him to the boat,
when he swam to it. On the third day,
they killed the dog, and drank his blood out
of a hat. On the fourth day, the two men
gave in, saying they would rather die than
toil on; and one persisted in refusing to do his
part in baling the boat, though the captain
implored him on his knees. But, a very
decided threat from the mate to steer him
into the other world with the topmast by
bringing it down upon his skull, induced him
to turn-to again. On the fifth day, the mate
exhorted the rest to cut a piece out of his
thigh, and quench their thirst; but, no one
stirred. He had eaten more of the dog than
any of the rest, and would seem from this
wild proposal to have been the worse for it,
though he was quite steady again next day,
and derived relief (as the captain did), from
turning a nail in his mouth, and often
sprinkling his head with salt-water. The
captain, first and last, took only a few
mouthfuls of the dog, and one of the seamen
only tasted it, and the other would not touch
it. The onions they all thought of small
advantage to them, as engendering greater
thirst. On the eighth day, the two seamen,
who had soon relapsed and become delirious
and quite oblivious of their situation, died,
within three hours of each other. The
captain and mate saw the Island of Tobago
that evening, but could not make it until late
in the ensuing night. The bodies were
found in the boat, unmutilated by the last
resource.