We were not much more than a quarter of an hour out of our ship but we saw her sink,and then I understood for the first time what was meant by a ship foundering in the sea.I must acknowledge I had hardly eyes to look up when the seamen told me she was sinking;for from that moment they rather put me into the boat than that I might be said to go in;my heart was as it were dead within me,partly with fright,partly with horror of mind and the thoughts of what was yet before me.
While we were in this condition,the men yet labouring at the oar to bring the boat near the shore,we could see,when,our boat mounting the waves,we were able to see the shore,a great many people running along the shore to assist us when we should come near.But we made but slow way towards the shore,nor were we able to reach the shore,till being past the lighthouse at Winterton,the shore falls off to the westward towards Cromer,and so the land broke off a little the violence of the wind.Here we got in,and though not without much difficulty got all safe on shore,and walked afterwards on foot to Yarmouth,where,as unfortunate men,we were used with great humanity as well by the magistrates of the town,who assigned us good quarters,as by particular merchants and owners of ships,and had money given us sufficient to carry us either to London or back to Hull,as we thought fit.
Had I now had the sense to have gone back to Hull,and have gone home,I had been happy,and my father,an emblem of our blessed Saviour's parable,had even killed the fatted calf for me;for hearing the ship I went away in was cast away in Yarmouth road,it was a great while before he had any assurance that I was not drowned.
But my ill fate pushed me on now with an obstinacy that nothing could resist;and though I had several times loud calls from my reason and my more composed judgment to go home,yet I had no power to do it.I know not what to call this,nor will I urge that it is a secret overruling decree that hurries us on to be the instruments of our own destruction,even though it be before us,and that we rush upon it with our eyes open.Certainly nothing but some such decreed unavoidable misery attending,and which it was impossible for me to escape,could have pushed me forward against the calm reasonings and persuasions of my most retired thoughts,and against two such visible instructions as I had met with in my first attempt.
My comrade,who had helped to harden me before,and who was the master's son,was now less forward than I.The first time he spoke to me after we were at Yarmouth,which was not till two or three days,for we were separated in the town to several quarters-I say,the first time he saw me,it appeared his tone was altered,and looking very melancholy and shaking his head,asked me how I did,and telling his father who I was,and how I had come this voyage only for a trial in order to go farther abroad,his father turning to me with a very grave and concerned tone,‘Young man,’says he,‘you ought never to go to sea any more,you ought to take this for a plain and visible token,that you are not to be a seafaring man.’‘Why,sir,’said I,‘will you go to sea no more?’‘That is another case,’said he;‘it is my calling,and therefore my duty;but as you made this voyage for a trial,you see what a taste Heaven has given you of what you are to expect if you persist;perhaps this is all befallen us on your account,like Jonah in the ship of Tarshish.Pray,’continues he,‘what are you?and on what account did you go to sea?’Upon that I told him some of my story,at the end of which he burst out with a strange kind of passion.‘What had I done,’says he,‘that such an unhappy wretch should come into my ship?I would not set my foot in the same ship with thee again for a thousand pounds.’This indeed was,as I said,an excursion of his spirits,which were yet agitated by the sense of his loss,and was farther than he could have authority to go.However,he afterwards talked very gravely to me,exhorted me to go back to my father,and not tempt Providence to my ruin;told me I might see a visible hand of Heaven against me.‘And,young man,’said he,‘depend upon it,if you do not go back,wherever you go you will meet with nothing but disasters and disappointments,till your father's words are fulfilled upon you.’
We parted soon after;for I made him little answer,and I saw him no more;which way he went,I know not.As for me,having some money in my pocket,I travelled to London by land;and there,as well as on the road,had many struggles with myself what course of life I should take,and whether I should go home,or go to sea.
As to going home,shame opposed the best motions that offered to my thoughts;and it immediately occurred to me how I should be laughed at among the neighbours,and should be ashamed to see,not my father and mother only,but even everybody else;from whence I have since often observed how incongruous and irrational the common temper of mankind is,especially of youth,to that reason which ought to guide them in such cases,viz.,that they are not ashamed to sin,and yet are ashamed to repent;not ashamed of the action for which they ought justly to be esteemed fools,but are ashamed of the returning,which only can make them be esteemed wise men.
In this state of life,however,I remained some time,uncertain what measures to take,and what course of life to lead.An irresistible reluctance continued to going home;and as I stayed a while,the remembrance of the distress I had been in wore off;and as that abated,the little motion I had in my desires to a return wore off with it,till at last I quite laid aside the thoughts of it,and looked out for a voyage.
