The Three Voyages of Captain Cook Round the World. Vol. II. Being the Second of the First VoyageCook, James
History
The Three Voyages of Captain Cook Round the World. Vol. II. Being the Second of the First Voyage
Cook, James
Cook, James, 1728-1779 -- Travel; Explorers -- Great Britain -- Biography; Voyages around the world -- History -- 18th century
While we were thus employed, day broke upon us, and we saw the land at
about eight leagues distance, without any island in the intermediate
space, upon which, if the ship should have gone to pieces, we might have
been set ashore by the boats, and from which they might have taken us by
different turns to the main: the wind however gradually died away, and
early in the forenoon it was a dead calm; if it had blown hard, the ship
must inevitably have been destroyed. At eleven in the forenoon we
expected high water, and anchors were got out, and every thing made
ready for another effort to heave her off if she should float, but to
our inexpressible surprise and concern, she did not float by a foot and
a half, though we had lightened her near fifty ton; so much did the
day-tide fall short of that in the night. We now proceeded to lighten
her still more, and threw overboard every thing that it was possible for
us to spare: hitherto she had not admitted much water, but as the tide
fell, it rushed in so fast, that two pumps, incessantly worked, could
scarcely keep her free. At two o’clock, she lay heeling two or three
streaks to starboard, and the pinnace, which lay under her bows, touched
the ground: we had now no hope but from the tide at midnight, and to
prepare for it we carried out our two bower anchors, one on the
starboard quarter, and the other right a-stern, got the blocks and
tackle which were to give us a purchase upon the cables in order, and
brought the falls, or ends of them, in abaft, straining them tight, that
the next effort might operate upon the ship, and by shortening the
length of the cable between that and the anchors, draw her off the ledge
upon which she rested, towards the deep water. About five o’clock in the
afternoon, we observed the tide begin to rise, but we observed at the
same time that the leak increased to a most alarming degree, so that two
more pumps were manned, but unhappily only one of them would work: three
of the pumps however were kept going, and at nine o’clock the ship
righted; but the leak had gained upon us so considerably, that it was
imagined she must go to the bottom as soon as she ceased to be supported
by the rock: this was a dreadful circumstance, so that we anticipated
the floating of the ship not as an earnest of deliverance, but as an
event that would probably precipitate our destruction. We well knew that
our boats were not capable of carrying us all on shore, and that when
the dreadful crisis should arrive, as all command and subordination
would be at an end, a contest for preference would probably ensue, that
would increase even the horrors of shipwreck, and terminate in the
destruction of us all by the hands of each other; yet we knew that if
any should be left on board to perish in the waves, they would probably
suffer less upon the whole than those who should get on shore, without
any lasting or effectual defence against the natives, in a country,
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