On July 28, a violent storm arose which separated the _Sea Venture_ from the rest of the fleet. This "dreadful tempest" was the tail of a West Indies hurricane and lasted four days and nights. An account of it written in 1610, by William Strachey, secretary to Lord De La Warr, and a passenger on the ship, is said to be one of the finest descriptions of a storm in all literature, and led to the writing of _The Tempest_ by Shakespeare. The letter was written to a person unknown, addressed as "Excellent Lady." Some excerpts are given herewith. When on S. James his day, July 24, being Monday ... the clouds gathering thicke upon us and the wind singing and whistling most unusually, which made us to cast off our pinnace towing the same until then asterne, a dreadful storm and hideous, began to blow from out the north-east, which swelling, and roaring, as it were by fitts, some hours with more violence than others, at length beat all light from heaven, which like a hell of darkness turned black upon us, so much the more fuller of horror, as in such cases horror and fear use to overrunne the troubled, and overmastered sences of all, which, taken up with amazement, the eares lay so sensible to the terrible cries, and murmurs of the winds, and distractions of our company.... For foure and twenty houres the storme in a restless tumult, had blown so exceedingly, as we could not apprehend in our imaginations any possibility of greater violence, yet did wee still find it, not only more terrible, but more constant, fury added to fury, and one storm urging a second more outrageous than the former; whether it so wrought upon our feares ... as made us look one upon the other with troubled hearts and panting bosoms; our clamours drowned in the windes, and the windes in thunder. Prayers might well be in the heart and lips, but drowned in the outcries of the officers, nothing heard that could give comfort, nothing seen that might encourage hope.... The sea swelled above the clouds, and gave battell unto Heaven. It could not be said to raine, the waters like whole rivers did flood in the ayre.... The winds spake more loud and grew more tumultuous and malignant. What shall I say? Winds and seas were as mad as fury and rage could make them.... There was not a moment in which the sudden splitting or instant oversetting of the ship was not expected. Howbeit this was not all; it pleased God to bring a greater affliction yet upon us; for in the beginning of the storm, we had received likewise a mighty leake. And the ship in every joint almost, having spued out her okam, before we were aware ... was growne five foote suddenly deep with water above her ballast, and we almost drowned within, whilst we sat looking when to perish from above. This imparting no less terror than danger ran through