Here then was another important portion of our force rendered useless; to say nothing of the depressing influence their officer’s misfortunes and sufferings had on the sailors, who, like most seamen, were superstitious, and were heard declaring that the BREWSTER was an “unlucky ship.” Mr. Trufant was an exemplary seaman, and could have handled the ship as well as the captain. At this most distressing time, the gale grew more violent than ever; heavy seas swept over from stern to stem, in rapid succession; the main hatch-house was stove to pieces; both galley doors were stove in, and the sea dashed through, putting out the fires, washing away provisions and important utensils, and hurling the steward out against the bulwark, and almost overboard; nearly all the remaining planks of the bulwarks were torn away; the wheel-house began to go to pieces; the lower fore top-sail was blown to ribbons; and the ship broached to—that is, came round into the trough of the sea, and lay with her side to the wind and waves. The captain hurried out upon the after-deck, had the lower mizzen top-sail taken in, and ordered the lower main top-sail to be braced so that the ship should lie close to the wind, and steer over the waves. This done, he returned to the cabin, and he and I “set” Mr. Trufant’s broken leg—and a deuce of a “set” we made of it. I had read “anatomy” in my time, and fancied I knew something of surgery and the general construction of the human frame; but, tossing about as the ship was at that time, the most skillful surgeon could scarcely have done justice to the case. Only the _tibia_—that is, the large bone of the leg—was broken, and we applied three splints to it, bound it too tightly, with too much bandage, and fancied we had “reduced the fracture,” in a scientific manner. When we arrived in New York Harbor, nine days later, and the mate was taken to the Brooklyn City Hospital, the surgeons there had to set it over again, and attach a forty-pound weight to the foot to keep it in its place. Our troubles were not over when Mr. Trufant’s accident occurred. Another man at the wheel had his shoulder dislocated, and was carried to the forecastle. Every wave that swept over did some additional damage—crushing in a panel of the house on deck, or tearing a plank from the bulwarks. Mr. Gorham told the captain that the water in the hold was increasing, and that one of the two pumps was out of order. The rigging grew slack again; the shrouds had endured such a strain that some of them were beginning to give way and were flapping loosely in the wind: and it began to be pretty clear that the main-mast would soon go.