"At daylight (the 11th) there was no vessel in sight; and flashes from guns having been seen in the night, we feared the ship we had seen the preceding day had foundered. Towards ten o'clock in the forenoon the weather grew more moderate, the water diminished in the hold, and the people were encouraged to redouble their efforts to get the water low enough to break a cask of fresh water out of the ground tier; and some of the most resolute of the seamen were employed in the attempt. At noon we succeeded with one cask, which, though little, was a seasonable relief. All the officers, passengers, and boys, who were not of the profession of seamen, had been employed in thrumming a sail, which was passed under the ship's bottom, and I thought had some effect. The shears were raised for the fore mast; the weather looked promising, the sea fell, and at night we were able to relieve at the pumps and baling every two hours. By the morning of the 20th the fore hold was cleared of the water, and we had the comfortable promise of a fine day. It proved so, and I was determined to make use of it with all possible exertion. I divided the ship's company, with officers attending them, into parties, to raise the jury fore-mast; to heave over the lower-deck guns; to clear the wreck of the fore and after holds; to prepare the machine for steering the ship, and to work the pumps. By night the after hold was as clear as when the ship was launched; for, to our astonishment, there was not a shovel of coals remaining, twenty chaldrons having been pumped out since the commencement of the gale. What I have called the wreck of the hold was the bulkheads of the after hold, fish-room, and spirit-rooms. The standards of the cockpit, an immense quantity of staves and wood, and part of the lining of the ship were thrown overboard, that if the water should again appear in the hold we might have no impediment in baling. All the guns were overboard, the fore mast secured, and the machine, which was to be similar to that with which the _Ipswich_ was steered, was in great forwardness; so that I was in hopes, the moderate weather continuing, that I should be able to steer the ship by noon the following day, and at least save the people on some of the western islands. Had we had any other ship in company with us, I should have thought it my duty to have quitted the _Centaur_ this day. "This night the people got some rest by relieving the watches; but in the morning of the 21st we had the mortification to find that the weather again threatened, and by noon it blew a storm. The ship laboured greatly and the water appeared in the fore and after hold, and increased. The carpenter also informed me that the leathers were nearly consumed; and likewise, that the chains of the pumps, by constant exertion and the friction of the coals, were considered as nearly useless.