The Loss of the Kent, East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay / Narrated in a Letter to a Friend

ESCAPING FROM THE BURNING SHIP.
NEW EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS. THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY, 56, Paternoster Row; 65, St. Paul's Churchyard; and 164, Piccadilly.
The older I grow, and I am now in my 94th year, I am the more convinced of the special interposition of Divine Providence in the winter recorded, in the following Tract.

The Author
My Dear E——,
You are aware that the Kent , Captain Henry Cobb, a fine new ship of 1,350 tons, bound to Bengal and China, left the Downs on the 19th of February, with 20 officers, 344 soldiers, 43 women, and 66 children, belonging to the 31st regiment; with 20 private passengers, and a crew (including officers) of 148 men—in all, 641 persons on board.
The bustle attendant on a departure for India is calculated to subdue the force of those deeply painful sensations to which few men can refuse to yield, in the immediate prospect of a long and distant separation from the land of their fondest and earliest recollections. With my gallant shipmates, indeed, whose elasticity of spirits is remarkably characteristic of the professions to which they belonged, hope appeared greatly to predominate over sadness. Surrounded as they were by every circumstance that could render their voyage propitious, and in the ample enjoyment of every necessary that could contribute either to their health or their comfort, their hearts seemed to beat high with contentment and gratitude towards that country which they zealously served, and whose interests they were cheerfully going forth to defend.
With a fine fresh breeze from the north-east, the stately Kent , in bearing down the Channel, speedily passed many a well-known spot on the coast dear to our remembrance; and on the evening of the 23rd we took our last view of happy England, and entered the wide Atlantic, without the expectation of again seeing land until we reached the shores of India.
With slight interruptions of bad weather, we continued to make way until the night of Monday, the 28th, when we were suddenly arrested in lat. 47° 30´, long. 10°, by a violent gale from the south-west, which gradually increased during the whole of the following morning.