and hollow tone of their voices, convinced us that they had suffered much greater hardships than could be expected {254} from even the severities of a Spanish prison. They were obliged to be helped into the ship, and were immediately put to bed, where by rest and nourishing diet, which they were plentifully supplied with from the commodore's table, they recovered their health and vigour apace. And now we learnt that they had kept the sea the whole time of their absence, which was above six weeks; that when they had finished their cruise before Acapulco, and had just begun to ply to the westward, in order to join the squadron, a strong adverse current had forced them down the coast to the eastward, in spight of all their efforts to the contrary, that at length, their water being all expended, they were obliged to search the coast farther on to the eastward in quest of some convenient landing-place where they might get a fresh supply; that in this distress they ran upwards of eighty leagues to leeward, and found everywhere so large a surf that there was not the least possibility of their landing; that they passed some days in this dreadful situation without water, having no other means left them to allay their thirst than sucking the blood of the turtle which they caught; that at last, giving up all hopes of succour, the heat of the climate too augmenting their necessities, and rendering their sufferings insupportable, they abandoned themselves to despair, fully persuaded that they should perish by the most terrible of all deaths; but that soon after a most unexpected incident happily relieved them. For there fell so heavy a rain, that on spreading their sails horizontally, and putting bullets in the centers of them to draw them to a point, they caught as much water as filled all their casks; that immediately upon this fortunate supply they stood to the westward in quest of the commodore; and being now luckily favoured by a strong current, they joined us in less than fifty hours from that time, after having been absent in the whole full forty-three days. Those who have an idea of the inconsiderable size of a cutter belonging to a sixty-gun ship (being only an open boat about twenty-two feet in length), and who will reflect on the various casualties that must have attended her during a six weeks' continuance alone, in the open ocean, on so impracticable and dangerous a coast, will readily own that her return to us at last, after all the difficulties which she actually experienced, and the dangers to which she was each hour exposed, may be considered as little short of miraculous. {255}