The Poems of Philip Freneau, Poet of the American Revolution. Volume 1 (of 3) — John Shaqi
The Poems of Philip Freneau, Poet of the American Revolution. Volume 1 (of 3)Freneau, Philip Morin
General
The Poems of Philip Freneau, Poet of the American Revolution. Volume 1 (of 3)
Freneau, Philip Morin
American poetry
"I have the mortification to inform you that, after leaving
New-York on the 21st of July, I had the misfortune to have my
vessel dismasted, thrown on her beam ends, shifted and ruined the
bulk of her cargo, lost every sail, mast, spar, boat, and almost
every article upon deck, on the Wednesday afternoon following, in
one of the hardest gales that ever blew upon this coast. Capt.
William Cannon, whom I think you know, who was going passenger with
me to Charleston, and Mr. Joseph Stillwell, a lad of a reputable
family in New-Jersey, were both washed overboard and drowned,
notwithstanding every effort to save them. All my people besides,
except one, an old man who stuck fast in one of the scuttles, were
several times overboard, but had the fortune to regain the wreck,
and with considerable difficulty save their lives.--As to myself, I
found the vessel no longer under any guidance--I took refuge in the
main weather shrouds, where indeed I saved myself from being washed
into the sea, but was almost staved to pieces in a violent fall I
had upon the main deck, the main-mast having given way six feet
above the deck, and gone overboard--I was afterward knocked in the
head by a violent stroke of the tiller, which entirely deprived me
of sensation for (I was told) near a quarter of an hour.--Our pumps
were now so choaked with corn that they would no longer work,
upward of four feet of water was in the hold, fortunately our
bucket was saved, and with this we went to baling, which alone
prevented us from foundering in one of the most dismal nights that
ever man witnessed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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