Upon this, even the bravest was upon the point of giving up his labour with his hope, and in a few minutes everything would have been involved in all the confusion of despair. But this accident, however dreadful in its first consequences, was eventually the cause of our preservation: the mistake was soon detected, and the sudden joy which every man felt upon finding his situation better than his fears had suggested, operated like a charm, and seemed to possess him with a strong belief that scarcely any real danger remained." The men now renewed their efforts with such alacrity and spirit, that before eight o'clock in the morning the leak no longer gained upon them, but the pumps gained considerably upon the leak. They cut most of their cables with the consequent loss of anchors, but got once more under sail and stood for the land. It would, however, have been impossible to continue indefinitely the frightful labour of pumping out the sea water as fast as it poured in through the leaks, and the expedition would only have received a miserable respite but for the ingenious suggestion made by the same reckless midshipman, Monkhouse, who had been so ready to open fire on boisterous natives. He approached his commander, and proposed an expedient he had once seen used on board a merchant ship, which sprung a leak that admitted more than 4 feet of water an hour, and yet by this expedient had been brought safely from North America to London.[85] To midshipman Monkhouse, therefore, the care of the expedient, which is called "fothering" the ship, was immediately committed, four or five of the people being appointed to assist him, and he performed it in this manner: "He took the lower studding sail, and having mixed together a large quantity of oakham and wool, chopped pretty small, he stitched it down in handfuls upon the sail, as lightly as possible, and over this he spread the dung of our sheep and other filth. When the sail was thus prepared, it was hauled under the ship's bottom by ropes, which kept it extended, and when it came under the leak, the suction which carried in the water, carried in with it the oakham and wool from the surface of the sail, which in other parts the water was not sufficiently agitated to wash off. By the success of this expedient our leak was so far reduced that, instead of gaining upon three pumps, it was easily kept under by one. This was a new source of confidence and comfort; the people could scarcely have expressed more joy if they had been already in port." Cook goes on to observe in his journal that even when everything looked at its worst both officers and crew exhibited perfect possession of mind, and that everyone exerted himself to the uttermost, "with a quiet and patient perseverance, equally distant from the tumultuous violence of terror, and the gloomy inactivity of despair".