One evening we had a fine beam wind on the port side and the old man was rather keen upon making the most of it. As he cracked on more and more canvas the ship lay over a good deal. It was my first watch and it was spent mostly at the pump, but when the mate relieved me at midnight I was able to report that the ship had “sucked,” which was equivalent to saying that she was pumped dry. Dry below she might have been certainly, but as her starboard rail was more often under water than not, on deck it was certainly more than a little damp. I had hung on to the topgallantsails for my watch, and the mate now proceeded to get these in. That, I suppose, was really the beginning of the trouble, for we all, from the skipper down, should have known that a small old ship would not stand being driven unfairly. But she had the reputation for being strong and sound, and as she had been built by White of Cowes the idea obtained was that there was on occasion a turn of speed to be driven out of her. The starboard watch now went below. The mainsail was stowed, and we knew that the mate could handle the topsails if it became necessary to reef down. This, indeed, was very soon done, as we could gather from the various noises. We could also tell that she was wallowing into it, and that a great quantity of water was being taken on deck. Before our watch below expired “all hands” were called to take in the foresail. It was blowing fairly hard, there was a good amount of sea running, and the ship had a very dull, heavy motion that did not seem to be quite right, but we got the foresail in, and went aloft to stow it. I had learned by that time that it was well to make sure work of such things, so as the gaskets on the lee side were rather insufficient I sent a man down to let go the lee leach line so that I could use it as an extra gasket. While I was busy over this the day was breaking, and I saw the mate with the sounding line doing something at the pumps and making signs to me to come down. At the same time it occurred to me that the ship was rising very sluggishly to the sea. Even then the truth did not occur, but as I got on the deck, the mate yelled in my ear, “There’s seven feet of water in her.” There are times when all men think alike, not frequently I will admit, but this was one of those rare cases when no one proposed to argue the point, and a rush aft was made for the mainbraces. The skipper was on deck by this time, and he also appeared to acquiesce, for he had not been specially called, and was unaware that anything out of the way was happening. There was another strange occurrence; there was a black man at the wheel--at least he was a black nigger when he went there--but as he put the helm up his face had paled to some nondescript colour that was certainly not black. I have never seen a similar case.