The fatigue I had suffered from the tossing of the ship, and the violence with which she continued to roll, had kept me in bed. It was about ten o’clock in the morning of the 18th, when the mate looked down into the cabin and cried, “save yourselves if you can!”
The consternation and terror of that moment cannot be described; I had on a loose dressing gown, and wrapping it round me I went up, not quite on deck, but to the top of the stairs, from whence I saw the sea break mountain high against the shore. The passengers and soldiers seemed thunderstruck by the sense of immediate and inevitable danger, and the seamen, too conscious of the hopelessness of any exertion, stood in speechless agony, certain of meeting in a few moments that destruction which now menaced them.
While I thus surveyed the scene around me in a kind of dread which no words can figure, Mr. Burns, an officer of dragoons, who had come up in his shirt, called to Mr. Jenner and Mr. Stains for his cloak; nobody, however, could attend to any thing in such a moment but self-preservation.
Mr. Jenner, Mr. Stains and Mr. Dodd the surgeon, now passed me, their countenances sufficiently expressing their sense of the situation in which we all were. Mr. Burns spoke cheerfully to me; he bade me take good courage, and Mr. Jenner observed, there was a good shore near, and all would do well.
These gentlemen then went to the side of the ship, with the intention, as I believe, of seeing whether it was possible to get on shore. The master of the vessel alone remained near the companion; when suddenly a tremendous wave broke over the ship, and struck me with such violence, that I was stunned for a moment, and, before being able to recover myself, the ship struck with a force so great as to throw me from the stairs into the cabin, the master being thrown down near me. At the same instant, the cabin, with a dreadful crash, broke in upon us, and planks and beams threatened to bury us in ruins. The master, however, soon recovered himself; he left me to go again upon deck, and I saw him no more.
A sense of my condition lent me strength to disengage myself from the boards and fragments by which I was surrounded, and I once more got upon the stairs, I hardly know how. But what a scene did I behold! The masts were all lying across the shattered remains of the deck, and no living creature appeared on it; all was gone, though I knew not then that they were gone forever. I looked forward to the shore, but there I could see nothing except the dreadful surf that broke against it, while, behind the ship, immense black waves rose like tremendous ruins. I knew that they must overwhelm her, and thought that there could be no escape for me.
Believing, then, that death was immediate and unavoidable, my idea was to regain my bed in the cabin, and there, resigning myself to the will of God, await the approaching moment. However, I could not reach it, and for a while was insensible; then the violent striking and breaking up of the wreck again roused me to recollection; I found myself near the cabin-windows, and the water was rising round me. It rapidly increased, and the horrors of drowning were present to my view; yet do I remember seeing the furniture of the cabin floating about. I sat almost enclosed by pieces of the wreck, and the water now reached my breast.
The bruises I had received made every exertion extremely difficult, and my loose gown was so entangled among the beams and fragments of the ship, that I could not disengage it. Still the desire of life, the hope of being welcomed on shore, whither I thought my friends had escaped, and the remembrance of my child, all united in inspiring me with courage to attempt saving myself. I again tried to loosen my gown, but found it impossible, and the wreck continued to strike so violently, and the ruins to close so much more around me, that I now expected to be crushed to death.
As the ship drifted higher on the stones, the water rather lessened as the waves went back, but on their return, continued to cover me, and I once or twice lost my breath, and, for a moment, my recollection. When I had power to think, the principle of self preservation still urged me to exertion.
The cabin now broke more and more, and through a large breach I saw the shore very near. Amidst the tumult of the raging waves I had a glimpse of the people, who were gathering up what the sea drove towards them; but I thought they could not see me, and from them I despaired of assistance.—Therefore I determined to make one effort to preserve my life. I disengaged my arms from the dressing gown, and, finding myself able to move, I quitted the wreck, and felt myself on the ground. I attempted to run, but was too feeble to save myself from a raging wave, which overtook and overwhelmed me. Then I believed myself gone; yet, half suffocated as I was, I struggled very much, and I remember that I thought I was very long dying. The wave left me; I breathed again, and made another attempt to get higher upon the bank, but, quite exhausted, I fell down and my senses forsook me.