to have all the boats in readiness to convey
the people to the Orion. Every precaution
was in the mean while used to suffocate the
flame with wet-swabs, sail-cloths, &c., and
thus at least to retard the disaster; but all to
no purpose. We so plainly saw our situation,
that it was but a little time before the
whole of us had left the Margaret and Anne,
except a few who remained to cut open the
decks and make a last effort by throwing
down water to extinguish the flames: such,
however, was the ascendency they already
had gained, and such the volumes of smoke
and fire which instantaneously burst forth,
that delay only endangered the lives of the
men, and it was found necessary almost immediately
to abandon the attempt and give
4ip the vessel to her fate. By twelve or one
o’clock every living thing, not even excepting
the sheep, cats, and dogs, was secured,
but of our property it was impossible to save
any thing, excepting only a very few articles
that were with us in the cabin; for the fire,
at the time of its first discovery, had taken
hold of the place in which every thing most
valuable was kept. We were but too happy
to escape with our lives, and with the clothes
upon our backs, and even for this we are in
no small degree indebted to the extraordinary
exertions of Mr. Jorgensen, at a time when
nearly the whole of the ship’s crew seemed
paralysed with fear. He, too, as would be
expected by all who knew his character, was
the last to quit the vessel. Just at this time
the wind; which had blown fresh, suddenly
fell, and we were compelled by the succeeding
calm to be the near and melancholy spectators
of the destruction of a ship of five hundred
tons burthen, with all her sails set, and a cargo
principally consisting of oil and tallow, the
whole worth not less than ^ 2 5 ,0 0 0 . The
flames first seized the sails and rigging of the
foremast, which they soon destroyed, and communicated
to those of the main and mizen
masts, enveloping the whole in one general
conflagration. Shortly afterwards they subsided,
leaving the naked masts here and there
on fire; but when the tallow and oil boiled
over and ran in wide cataracts of fire down
the sides of the vessel, blazing over every
part of the hull, the scene was awful beyond
description. The clouds of smoke, greater
by far than those * of steam from the larogest
eruption of the Geyser, rose to an almost
inconceivable height in one steady column,