RESCUE OF CREW AND PASSENGERS. 875

the air; and iminediately, that is to say, in a few minutes, all
the fire was out, that is to say, the rest of the ship sunk. This
was a terrible, and indeed an afflicting sight, for the sake of the
poor men, who, I concluded, must be either all destroyed in the
ship, or be in the utmost distress in their boat in the middle of the
ocean, which at present, by reason it was dark, I could not see.
However, to direct them as well as I could, I caused lights to be
hung out in all the parts of the ship where we could, and which
we had lanterns for, and kept firing guns all night long, letting
them know by this that there was a ship not far off.

About eight o’clock in the morning we discovered the ship’s
boats by the help of our perspective glasses, and found there were
two of them, both thronged with people, and deep in the water.
We perceived they rowed, the wind being against them, that they
saw our ship, and did their utmost to make us see them.

We immediately spread our ancient to let them know we saw
them, and hung a waft out as a signal for them to come on board,
and then made more sail, standing directly to them. In little
more than half an hour we came up with them, and in a word,
took them all in, being no less than sixty-four men, women, and
children ; for there were a great many passengers.

Upon the whole, we found it was a French merchant ship of
three hundred tons, homeward bound from Quebec, in the river of
Canada. The master gave us a long account of the distress of his
ship; how the fire began in the steerage, by the negligence of the
steersman; but on his crying out for help, was, as everybody
thought, entirely put out, when they found that some sparks of
the first fire had gotten into some part of the ship so difficult
to come at that they could not effectually quench it, till, getting in
between the timbers, and within the ceiling of the ship, it pro-
ceeded into the hold, and mastered all the skill and all the applica-
tion they were able to exert.

They had no more to do then but to get into their boats, which,
to their great comfort, were pretty large, being their long-boat,
and a great shallop, besides a small skiff, which was of no great
service to them, other than to get some fresh water and provisions
into her after they had secured their lives from the fire. They