“Aye, Archer, as fast as you can.” I accordingly went into the chains with a pole-axe to cut away the lanyards; the boatswain went to leeward, and the carpenters stood by the mast. We were already when a very violent sea broke right on board of us, carried away everything that was left on deck, filled the ship with water, the main and mizzen-masts went, the ship righted but was in the last struggle of sinking under us. As soon as we could shake our heads above water Sir Hyde exclaimed: “We are gone at last, Archer,--foundered at sea.” “Yes, sir. And the Lord have mercy upon us.” The unlucky crew of the _Phoenix_ frigate, more than three hundred souls, had behaved with disciplined fortitude. The captain, who had commanded her for six years, knew his ship and her people, and they had stood the test. In this weltering chaos of wind and sea, which extended far over the Caribbean, twelve other ships went down, all of them flying the white ensign of the Royal Navy, and more than three thousand seamen perished. Maritime disasters were apt to occur on a tremendous scale in those olden days when ships sailed in fleets and convoys. It was not ordained that the brave and dogged ship’s company of the _Phoenix_ should be entirely swallowed by the sea. While they fought the last fight for life in the broken, sinking hulk, the keel thumped and ground along the back of a reef. Lieutenant Archer and Captain Sir Hyde Parker were floundering about together and had given themselves up for lost. The lieutenant was filled with reflections profoundly religious, as well as with salt water, and he took pains to expound them at length in writing to his mother, and these were a great solace, no doubt, to the good woman who waited for infrequent tidings in a home of green England. Sir Hyde Parker was swearing and spluttering at his men who were crying, “Lord have mercy on us!” “Keep to the quarter-deck, my boys, when she goes to pieces,” he yelled. “’Tis your best chance.” The shattered remnants of the frigate were being flailed upon the Cuban reef, but the boatswain and the carpenter rallied volunteers who cut away the foremast, which dragged five men to their death when it fell. All this was in the black, bewildering darkness just before the stormy day began to break; but the crew held on until they were able to see the cruel ledges and the mountainous coast which was only a few hundred feet away. Lieutenant Archer was ready to undertake the perilous task of trying to swim ashore with a line, but after he had kicked off his coat and shoes he said to himself: This won’t do, for me to be the first man out of the ship, and the senior lieutenant at that. We may get to England again and people may think I paid a great deal of attention to myself and not much to anybody else. No, that won’t do; instead of being the first, I’ll see every man, sick and well, out of her before me.