Appendix 251

arose and took the carpenter with him into the hold, and to his great surprise found the water roaring in dreadfully. On examination he found it was a butt started, and the more they endeavoured to press any- thing to stop it, the more the plank forsook the timber. They then went on deck to encourage the people at the pumps. Captain Nicholls had made a mark with a piece of chalk to see how the water gained upon them. Find- ing their case desperate, he went to all the Frenchmen’s cabins and begged of them to rise: telling them that though their lives were not in danger, their help at the pumps was highly essential. They immediately got up, and cheerfully assisted,

By this time it was daylight, when, to their great surprise and concern, they saw the Violet on her broad- side, a little distance from them; and the fore-yard broken in the slings of the fore-top-sail set, and her crew endeavouring to free her of the mizen-mast, as it appeared she had just then broached to, by the fore- yards giving way. It came on a most violent squall for ten minutes, and when it cleared up, they found, to their great and deep concern, that the poor unfortu- nate Violet, with near four hundred souls, was gone to the bottom. This fatal disaster shocked even the stoutest on board the Duke William; especially as a similar fate was now threatening them.

All the tubs before mentioned, were now got together and made gangways, the Frenchmen and women, who behaved with uncommon resolution, assisting. They then opened all the hatches, and as the water flowed fast into the hold, they filled the tubs and hauled them up, and turned them over the combings on the upper deck, which with three pumps constantly at work, and