Yet It Pleased God To Allay The Fury Of The Storm, And We Unreeved Our Sheets, Tacks, Halyards, And Other Ropes, And Made Fast Our Ship To The Trees On Shore, Close By The Rocks.

We laboured hard to recover our anchor again, which we could not possibly effect, being, as we supposed, entirely covered over in the ooze.

We were now reduced to one anchor, which had only one whole fluke; and had only one old cable, already spliced in two places, and a piece of another old cable. In this extremity of trouble it pleased God that the wind came fair on the 1st October, on which we loosed our land fastnings with all expedition, weighed our anchor, and towed off into the channel; for we had repaired our boat when in Port Desire, and got five oars from the Black pinnace. On weighing our anchor we found the cable sore broken, holding only by one strand, which was a most merciful preservation. We now reeved our ropes and rigged our ship the best we could, every man working as if to save our lives in the utmost extremity. Our company was now much divided in opinion as to how we should proceed for the best; some desiring to return to Port Desire, to be there set on shore, and endeavour to travel by land to some of the Spanish settlements, while others adhered to the captain and master: But at length, by the persuasion of the master, who promised that they would find wheat, pork, and roots in abundance at the island of St Mary, besides the chance of intercepting some ships on the coasts of Chili and Peru, while nothing but a cruel death by famine could be looked for in attempting to return by the Atlantic, they were prevailed upon to proceed.

So, on the 2d of October, 1592, we again made sail into the South Sea, and got free from the land. This night the wind again began to blow very strong at west, and increased with such violence that we were in great doubt what measures to pursue. We durst not put into the straits for lack of ground tackle, neither durst we carry sail, the tempest being very furious, and our sails very bad. In this extremity the pinnace bore up to us, informing she had received many heavy seas, and that her ropes were continually failing, so that they knew not what to do; but, unable to afford her any relief; we stood on our course in view of a lee shore, continually dreading a ruinous end of us all. The 4th October the storm increased to an extreme violence; when the pinnace, being to windward, suddenly struck a hull, when we thought she had sustained some violent shock of a sea, or had sprung a leak, or that her sails had failed, because she did not follow us. But we durst not hull in this unmerciful storm, sometimes trying under our main-course, sometimes with a haddock of our sail; for our ship was very leeward, and laboured hard in the sea.

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