While this state of gloomy foreboding continued, some of my shipmates manifested great alarm about eternity. They prayed aloud, in deep distress. Others only cursed, and said, as if in bravado, “We are all going to hell together.” For my own part I kept repeating the Lord’s prayer, and renewing those promises so often made in the moment of apparent destruction. At length the day dawned, revealing the sad havoc made by the winds, of our masts and rigging. We also saw a number of those dwellers on the ocean, called Mother Carey’s chickens. Our shattered aspect reminded me of the _Macedonian_ after the battle, excepting that we had no wounded and dead about us now. Captain Jones, who had not left the deck a moment during the night, declared that, though he had been twenty-five years at sea, he had never witnessed such a gale before. Our ship was nearly new, and an excellent sea-boat, or she would have shared the fate of many a ship in that terrible gale. As the wind abated with the approach of day, we repaired our damages and proceeded on our voyage, frequently passing vessels which had suffered as severely as ourselves. This gale was on the 9th and 10th days of August, 1815. Probably many, both sailors and landsmen, will recollect this and the September gale of that year, which occasioned such destruction of life and shipping. Sailors are superstitious. Our men attributed this mishap to the presence of some Jonah in the ship. The man they pitched upon, as the probable offender, was an old sea-captain, who had been cast away several times. That he had done some fearful deed, was a matter of undoubted truth among them; but not being so resolute as the mariners of Tarshish, they did not cast him into the sea; neither did this liberality on their part cost us our lives, for, after several days of pleasant weather, we one morning found ourselves safely anchored at the quarantine ground, near the city of New York. The crew of the _Siren_ having obtained leave to go on shore, full of my good purposes to lead a steady life on the land, I hurried directly to Broadway, to inquire for my former employer, the kind-hearted boot-maker. To my disappointment, he had gone to Philadelphia; so that I returned on board, somewhat chagrined at the failure of my plan. The next morning we were conveyed, in a large sail-boat, on board the _Tom Bowling_, an hermaphrodite brig. Here I was congratulated by the old quartermaster, Lewis Deal, who was with me when we narrowly escaped capture at the mouth of Salem harbor, while on a fishing excursion. He said he had felt much anxiety for my safety all the voyage, especially as it was reported that my former captain had made strict search for the _Macedonians_ among all the American prisoners who were carried to England. The kind-hearted old man wept tears of gladness at my safe return.