While the long-boat was standing along the coast, on this last stretch of the journey, there came a time when there was no food or water left. There was no small boat to send ashore, so nine of the strongest men offered to swim to the beach and see what they could find. Over they went, feeble as they were, and all reached shore except one marine, who had so little strength to spare that he sank like a stone. Those in the long-boat let several empty water-casks drift to the land and tied to them some muskets and ammunition wrapped in tarred canvas. A gale blew the long-boat out to sea and disabled her rudder. Tacking back with great difficulty, she found it impossible to lay to and bring off the eight men, and another cask was floated off to them, containing a letter of farewell, and more ammunition, and the boat made sail, and vanished to the northward. The adventures of this little band of seamen, accidentally marooned in this manner, were most remarkable. They are almost unknown to history, although a century and more ago much was written about the _Wager_. The heroism and manliness of this group of actors go far to redeem many other episodes of the disaster which were profoundly shameful, and they are the chief reason for recalling the cruise of the long-boat. Said Isaac Morris, one of them: We found ourselves on a wild, desolate part of the world, fatigued, sickly, and destitute of provisions. However, we had arms and ammunition and while these lasted we made a tolerable shift for a livelihood. The nearest inhabited place of which we knew was Buenos Ayres, about three hundred miles to the northwest: but we were then miserably reduced by our tedious passage through the Straits of Magellan, and in a poor condition to undertake so hazardous a journey. Nothing remained but to commit ourselves to kind Providence, and make the best of the melancholy situation until our health became recruited. We were eight in number thus abandoned by our comrades, for whose preservation we had risked our lives by swimming ashore for provisions, and our names Guy Broadwater, Samuel Cooper, Benjamin Smith, John Duck, Joseph Clinch, John Andrews, John Allen, and myself. After deliberating on our unhappy circumstances and comforting each other with imaginary hopes, we came to the resolution of taking up our quarters on the beach where we landed until becoming strong enough to undergo the fatigue of a journey to Buenos Ayres.