April 22.  The next morning I began to consider of means to put this resolve in execution, but I was at a great loss about my tools.  I had three large axes and abundance of hatchets (for we carried the hatchets for traffic with the Indians); but with much chopping and cutting knotty hard wood, they were all full of notches and dull; and though I had a grindstone, I could not turn it and grind my tools too:  this cost me as much thought as a statesman would have bestowed upon a grand point of politics, or a judge upon the life and death of a man.  At length I contrived a wheel with a string, to turn it with my foot, that I might have both my hands at liberty. Note, I had never seen any such thing in England, or at least not to take notice how it was done, though since I have observed it is very common there; besides that, my grindstone was very large and heavy.  This machine cost me a full week’s work to bring it to perfection.

April 28, 29.  These two whole days I took up in grinding my tools, my machine for turning my grindstone performing very well.

April 30.  Having perceived my bread had been low a great while, now I took a survey of it, and reduced myself to one biscuit-cake a day, which made my heart very heavy.

May 1.  In the morning, looking towards the sea-side, the tide being low, I saw something lie on the shore bigger than ordinary; and it looked like a cask; when I came to it, I found a small barrel, and two or three pieces of the wreck of the ship, which were driven on shore by the late hurricane; and looking towards the wreck itself, I thought it seemed to lie higher out of the water than it used to do.  I examined the barrel which was driven on shore, and soon found it was a barrel of gunpowder, but it had taken water, and the powder was caked as hard as a stone; however, I rolled it farther on shore for the present, and went on upon the sands as near as I could to the wreck of the ship, to look for more.

When I came down to the ship, I found it strangely removed; the forecastle, which lay before buried in sand, was heaved up at least six foot; and the stern, which was broke to pieces, and parted from the rest by the force of the sea, soon after I had left rummaging her, was tossed, as it were, up, and cast on one side, and the sand was thrown so high on that side next her stern, that whereas there was a great place of water before, so that I could not come within a quarter of a mile of the wreck without swimming, I could now walk quite up to her when the tide was out.  I was surprised with this at first, but soon concluded it must be done by the earthquake:  and as by this violence the ship was more broken open than formerly, so many things came daily on shore, which the sea had loosened, and which the winds and water rolled by degrees to the land.

This wholly diverted my thoughts from the design of removing my habitation; and I busied myself mightily, that day especially, in searching whether I could make any way into the ship; but I found nothing was to be expected of that kind, for that all the inside of the ship was choked up with sand:  however, as I had learnt not to despair of any thing, I resolved to pull every thing to pieces that I could of the ship, concluding, that every thing I could get from her would be of some use or other to me.