The admiral therefore gave orders for all the buckets to be manned, and every officer to help towards freeing the ship; the mizen-top sail was set upon the fore mast, the main top-gallant sail on the stump of the mizen mast, and the tiller shipped. In this condition, by bearing away, she scudded on at so good a rate that she held pace with some of the merchantmen. The day having been spent in baling and pumping, with materially gaining on the water, the captain, in the name of the officers, represented to the admiral the necessity of parting with the guns for the relief of the ship; but he objected that there would then be left no protection for the convoy. At length, however, he consented to their disposing of the fore castle and aftermost quarter-deck guns, together with some of the shot, and other articles of very great weight. The ensuing night was employed in baling and endeavouring to make the pumps useful, for the ballast, by getting into the well, had choked and rendered them useless, and the chains had broken as often as they were repaired. The water had risen to seven feet in the hold. The wind from the eastward drove a vast sea before it, and the ship, being old, strained most violently. On the morning of the 18th nothing could be seen of the _Canada_, she having pushed on at her greatest speed for England. The frame of the _Ramilies_ having opened during the night, the admiral was prevailed upon, by the renewed and pressing remonstrances of his officers, although with great reluctance, to let six of the forwardmost and four of the aftermost guns of the main deck be thrown overboard, together with the remainder of those on the quarter-deck; and the ships still continuing to open very much, he ordered tarred canvas and hides to be nailed fore and aft from under the sills of the ports on the main deck under the fifth plank above, or within the water ways; and the crew, without orders, did the same on the lower deck. Her increasing complaints required still more to be done. The admiral directed all the guns on the upper deck, the shot, both on that and the lower deck, and various heavy stores, to be thrown overboard; a leakage in the light-room of the grand magazine having almost filled the ship forward, and there being eight feet of water in the magazine, every gentleman was compelled to take his turn at the whips or in handing the buckets. The ship was besides frapped from the fore mast to the main mast. Notwithstanding their utmost efforts the water still gained on them the succeeding night, and the wind blowing very hard, with extremely heavy squalls, a part of the orlop deck fell into the hold: the ship herself seemed to work excessively, and to settle forward.