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However, as their captain begged of us to help him to set up a main-topmast, and a kind of a topmast to his jury fore-mast, we did, as it were, lie by him for three or four days; and then, having given him five barrels of beef, a barrel of pork, two hogsheads of biscuit, and a proportion of peas, flour, and what other things we could spare; and taking three casks of sugar, some rum, and some pieces of eight from them for satisfaction, we left them, taking on board with us, at their own earnest request, the youth and the maid, and all their goods.
At the moment of a certain difficult manoeuvre, four men had to climb to the crossbars of the fore-mast in order to reef the mainsail. The first who sprang to the ratlines was Hunt. The second was Martin Holt; Burry and one of the recruits followed them. I could not have believed that any man could display such skill and agility as Hunt’s. His hands and feet hardly caught the ratlines.
Dick knew that nobody would interfere with the child, but still he placed him as much out of sight as possible, just abaft the fore-mast. "You be good boy, Charley, and don't cry out," he said, trying to soothe him. "There is a biscuit chaw it, lad. I have to take a spell at the pumps, and will be back directly."
He had been keeping watch on the fore-mast, to provide for our safety against land and shallows, in this untried region, and having neglected to secure his own, fell a sacrifice to his thoughtlessness. Being injured by the fall, he immediately sunk, and all our efforts to save him proved fruitless.
The shroud most exposed had parted first; three or four more followed in succession, and before there was time to secure anything, the remainder had gone together, and the mainmast had broken at a place where a defect was now seen in its heart. Falling over the side, the latter had brought down with it the mizzen-mast and all its hamper, and as much of the fore-mast as stood above the top.
The English Admiral having placed himself against the French, and the British ship Hannibal being under sail, cannonaded furiously the French Admiral, who, with superior spirit and success, resisted them; insomuch that, having carried away the Admiral's mizen-mast, and sails of the main and fore-mast, with no small damage of his hull, the commander of the English ship Hannibal, despising the fire from the battery of St.
The situation of the ship, before she struck on the rocks, has been fully elucidated by Sir Edward Pellow, in his letter of the 17th of January, to Mr. Nepeau. The awful task is left for me to relate what ensued. At about four in the morning a dreadful convulsion, at the foot of the fore-mast, roused us from a state of anxiety for our fate, to the idea that the ship was sinking.
Indeed, during the four days immediately preceding this catastrophe, it blew such a strong gale, and such a heavy sea followed the Ramillies, that it was always necessary to keep her with the wind upon her quarter, with seldom more than the sprit-sail hoisted upon her fore-mast, and at times with no sail at all, in which state she would run at the rate of six miles an hour.
The main-mast went overboard at the second shock: the fore-mast and bowsprit had fallen a few minutes before, in her attempt to keep off the land.
Not so bad as it might ha' been." "Oh, it couldn't have been worse!" I cried. "What? Not been worse, sir? Why, where's your mainmas' gone by the board, and your fore-mast cut off at the top-mast-head, and your mizzen splintered into matchwood? Why, my lad, this arn't been nothing. And look yonder, there's the sun a-coming out, leastwise it's making the clouds look red-like.
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