After this, who would not shout, "_Erin go bragh_!"
Dashing with a fine breeze out of the harbour, I saw with joy the
field of fortune open to me, holding out a fair promise of glory and
riches. "Adieu!" said I, in my heart, "adieu, ye lovely Nova Scotians!
learn in future to distinguish between false glitter and real worth.
Me ye prized for a handsome person and a smooth tongue, while you
foolishly rejected men of ten times my worth, because they wanted the
outward blandishments."
We were ordered to Bermuda, and on our first quitting the port steered
away to the southward with a fair wind at north-west. This breeze soon
freshened into a gale at south-east, and blew with some violence, but
after a while it died away to a perfect calm, leaving a heavy swell,
in which the ship rolled incessantly. About eleven o'clock the sky
began to blacken; and, before noon, had assumed an appearance of the
most dismal and foreboding darkness; the sea-gulls screamed as they
flew distractedly by, warning us to prepare for the approaching
hurricane, whose symptoms could hardly be mistaken. The warning was
not lost upon us, most of our sails were taken in, and we had, as we
thought, so well secured everything, as to bid defiance to the storm.
About noon it came with a sudden and terrific violence that astonished
the oldest and most experienced seaman among us: the noise it made was
horrible, and its ravages inconceivable.
The wind was from the north-west--the water as it blew on board, and
all over us, was warm as milk; the murkiness and close smell of the
air was in a short time dispelled; but such was the violence of the
wind, that, on the moment of its striking the ship, she lay over on
her side with her lee guns under water.
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