All efforts, however, were unavailing. Mr. Wilson, one of the survivors, said, that as it was getting light, he asked Captain Martin if he should go on baling out the water, to which the Captain replied, “You may, but I think it is of no use.” About eight o’clock the carpenter received orders to see to the boats! On board now there were the port cutter, the two pinnaces, and the jolly boat, for two lifeboats and the starboard cutter had been washed away previously. All the boats were immediately plugged and made ready for sea, and bread and water put in them. A little before ten o’clock the starboard pinnace, which was of iron, and which would hold fifty persons, was got ready for lowering, and John King with five others got into her. Being lowered too fast, however, she swamped, and sunk headforemost: the men were of course thrown with great violence into the sea. After having been twelve seconds under water, King was washed up to the rail of the ship, and got on board, and the rest also were saved. Shortly after the foundering of the starboard pinnace, the Captain entered the saloon, and said, by way of answer to the mute appeal made to him on every face, “Ladies, there is no hope for us, I am afraid. Nothing short of a miracle can save us.” These were his exact words, and Mr. Draper calmly replied to them by saying, “Then let us pray!” At two o’clock on that wild, stormy afternoon the vessel was sinking rapidly, and the channels were nearly level with the water. Captain Martin now told Mr. Greenhill, that as the port cutter was ready for lowering, he had better take the command of her, and of as many as it would hold. As for himself, he had no thought of leaving his ship; he would sink with the _London_ and her doomed passengers. The crew, as they remembered the fate of the starboard pinnace a few hours previously, were at first not over-anxious to set about lowering the port cutter, and, for reasons that will appear in the next chapter, the passengers generally made no attempts to escape.