Several there were who vowed in loud and piteous cries, that if the Lord God would spare their lives, they would thenceforward dedicate all their powers to His service; and not a few were heard to exclaim, in the bitterness of remorse, that the judgments of the Most High were justly poured out upon them for their neglected Sabbaths, and their profligate or profane lives; but the number of those was extremely small who appeared to dwell either with lively hope or dread on the view of an opening eternity. And as a further evidence of the truth of this observation, I may mention that when I afterwards had occasion to mount the mizen shrouds, I there met with a young man, who had brought me a letter of introduction from our excellent friend, Dr. G--n, to whom I felt it my duty, while we were rocking on the mast, quietly to propose the great question, "What must we do to be saved?" and this young gentleman has since informed Mr. P. that though he was at that moment fully persuaded of the certainty of immediate death, yet the subject of eternity, in any form, had not once flashed upon his mind previous to my conversation. While we thus lay in a state of physical inertion, but with all our mental faculties in rapid and painful activity--with the waves lashing furiously against the sides of our devoted ship, as if in anger with the hostile element for not more speedily performing its office of destruction,--the binnacle, by one of those many lurches which were driving everything movable from side to side of the vessel, was suddenly wrenched from its fastenings, and all the apparatus of the compass dashed to pieces upon the deck; on which one of the young mates, emphatically regarding it for a moment, cried out with the emotion so natural to a sailor under such circumstances, "What! is the _Kent's_ compass really gone?" leaving the bystanders to form, from that omen, their own conclusions. One promising young officer of the troops was seen thoughtfully removing from his writing-case a lock of hair, which he composedly deposited in his bosom; and another officer procuring paper and pens, addressed a short communication to his father, which was afterwards carefully enclosed in a bottle, in the hope that it might eventually reach its destination, with the view, as he stated, of relieving him from the long years of fruitless anxiety and suspense which our melancholy fate would awaken, and of bearing his humble testimony, at a moment when his sincerity could scarcely be questioned, to the faithfulness of that God in whose mercy he trusted, and whose peace he largely enjoyed in the tremendous prospect of immediate dissolution.[3] It was at this appalling instant, when "all hope that we should be saved was then taken away," and when the letter referred to was about being committed to the waves, that it occurred to Mr. Thomson, the fourth mate, to send a man to the fore-top, rather with the ardent wish than the expectation, that some friendly sail might be