The most part of the afternoon they were taken with a calm, till about seven o’clock in the evening, when the wind came fresh again to the east and towards the north, and then would again change; and sometimes they kept their course, and sometimes they were driven back again. The wind was high and variable, and they toiled to and again, uncertain where they were. Divers took the opportunity to recreate themselves by fishing, and the mackerel and other fish they took gave a little supply to their want of victual. About nine o’clock in the evening they lost the ‘Elizabeth,’ leaving her behind about three leagues; she used to keep a distance from Whitelocke’s ship, and under the wind of her, since they began their voyage; and, as a stranger, would not keep company with Whitelocke, being discontented because he went not in that frigate.
June 28, 1654.
Whitelocke’s great deliverance. This Wednesday was the day of Whitelocke’s greatest deliverance. After midnight, till three o’clock in the afternoon, was a great calm, and though the ‘President’ were taken with it, yet the ‘Elizabeth’ had a good wind; and notwithstanding that the day before she was left behind a great distance, yet this morning she came up near to him, and got before him; so great is the difference sometimes, and at so small a distance, at sea, that here one ship shall have no wind at all, and another ship a few yards from her shall have her sails filled. Notwithstanding the calm, yet the wind being by flashes large, they went the last night and the day before twenty leagues up and down, sometimes in their course and sometimes out of it. In the morning, sounding with the plummet, the pilot judged that they were about sixteen leagues from the Texel, and twenty-four from Orfordness, but he did not certainly know whereabouts they were. Between three and four o’clock in the afternoon the wind came to north-north-west, which gave them hopes of finishing their voyage the sooner, and it blew a fresh gale.
About five o’clock in the evening rose a very great fog and thick mist, so that it was exceeding dark, and they could not see their way a ship’s length before them. Whitelocke came upon the decks, and seeing the weather so bad and night coming on, and that all their sails were spread, and they ran extraordinary fast, he did not like it, but called together the captain, the master, the pilot, and others, to consult what was best to be done. He asked them why they spread all their sails, and desired to make so much way in so ill weather, and so near to night. They said they had so much sail because the wind favoured them, and that notwithstanding the bad weather they might safely run as they did, having sea-room enough. Whitelocke asked them if they knew whereabouts they were. They confessed they did not, because they had been so much tossed up and down by contrary winds, and the sun had not shined, whereby they might take the elevation. Whitelocke replied, that, having been driven forward and backward as they had been, it was impossible to know where they were; that the ship had run, and did now run, extraordinary fast, and if she should run so all night, perhaps they might be in danger of the English coast or of the Holland coast; and that by Norfolk there were great banks of sand, by which he had passed at sea formerly, and which could not be unknown to them; that in case the ship should fall upon those sands, or any other dangers of that coast, before morning, they should be all lost; and therefore he thought fit to take down some of their sails and slacken their course till, by daylight, they might come to know more certainly in what part they were.
The officers of the ship continued earnest to hold on their course, saying they would warrant it that there was running enough for all night, and that to take down any sail, now the wind was so good for them, would be a great wrong to them in their course. But Whitelocke was little satisfied with their reasons, and less with their warranties, which among them are not of binding force. His own reason showed him, that, not knowing where they were, and in such weather as this to run on as they did, they knew not whither, with all their sails spread, might be dangerous; but to take down some of their sails and to slacken their course could be no danger, and but little prejudice in the hindrance of their course this night, which he thought better to be borne than to endanger all.
He orders sail to be taken in. But chiefly it was the goodness of God to put it strongly upon Whitelocke’s heart to overrule the seamen in this particular, though in their own art, and though his own desires were sufficiently earnest to hasten to his dear relations and country; yet the present haste he feared might hinder the seeing of them at all. Upon a strange earnestness in his own mind and judgement, he gave a positive command to the captain to cause all the sails to be taken down except the mainsail only, and that to be half-furled. Upon the captain’s dispute, Whitelocke with quickness told him that if he did not presently see it done he would cause another to do it, whereupon the captain obeyed; and it was a great mercy that the same was done, which God directed as a means to save their lives.
After the sails were taken down, Whitelocke also ordered them to sound and try what water and bottom they had. About ten o’clock in the evening sounding, they found eighteen fathom water; the next sounding they had but fifteen fathom, and so lessened every sounding till they came to eight fathom, which startled them, and made them endeavour to tack about. But it was too late, for within less than a quarter of an hour after they had eighteen fathom water, The ship strikes. the ship struck upon a bank of sand, and there stuck fast. Whitelocke was sitting with some of the gentlemen in the steerage-room when this happened, and felt a strange motion of the frigate, as if she had leaped, and not unlike the curveting of a great horse; and the violence of the striking threw several of the gentlemen from off their seats into the midst of the room. The condition they were in was quickly understood, and both seamen and landsmen discovered it by the wonderful terror and amazement which had seized on them, and more upon the seamen than others who knew less of the danger.
It pleased his good God to keep up the spirits and faith of Whitelocke in this great extremity; and when nothing would be done but what he in person ordered, in this frightful confusion God gave him extraordinary fixedness and assistance, a temper and constancy of spirit beyond what was usual with him. He ordered the master-gunner presently to fire some pieces of ordnance, after the custom at sea, to signify their being in distress. But the gunner was so amazed with the danger, that he forgot to unbrace the guns, and shot away the main-sheet; and had not the ship been strong and staunch, the guns being fired when they were close braced, they had broke the sides of her. Whitelocke caused the guns to be unbraced and divers of them fired, to give notice to the ‘Elizabeth,’ or any other ship that might be within hearing, to come in to their assistance; but they heard no guns again to answer theirs, though they longed for it, hoping that the ‘Elizabeth,’ or any other ship coming in to them, by their boats might save the lives of some of them. Whitelocke also caused lights to be set up in the top-gallant, used at sea by those in distress to invite help; but the lights were not answered again by any other ship or vessel; particularly they wondered that nothing was heard or seen from the ‘Elizabeth.’
Whitelocke then ordered the sails of the ship to be reversed, that the wind, being high, might so help them off; but no help was by it, nor by all the people’s coming together to the stern, then to the head, then to the sides of the ship, all in a heap together; nothing would help them. Then Whitelocke ordered the mariners to hoist out one of the boats, in which some of the company would have persuaded Whitelocke to put himself and to leave the rest, and seek to preserve his own life by trusting to the seas in this boat; and they that advised this, offered willingly to go with him.
But Whitelocke knew that if he should go into the boat, besides the dishonour of leaving his people in this distress, so many would strive to enter into the boat with him (a life knows no ceremony) that probably the boat would be sunk by the crowding; and there was little hope of escaping in such a boat, though he should get well off from the ship and the boat not be overladen. He therefore ordered the captain to take a few of the seamen into the boat with him, and to go round the ship and sound what water was on each side of her, and what hopes they could find, and by what means to get her off, himself resolving to abide the same fortune with his followers.