In three or four Days’ Time, a fine and fair Gale presented; of which the Master taking due Advantage, we sail’d over the Bar into the Bay of Biscay.  This is with Sailors, to a Proverb, reckon’d the roughest of Seas; and yet on our Entrance into it, nothing appear’d like it.  ’Twas smooth as Glass; a Lady’s Face might pass for young, and in its Bloom, that discover’d no more Wrinkles; Yet scarce had we sail’d three Leagues, before a prodigious Fish presented it self to our View.  As near as we could guess, it might be twenty Yards in Length; and it lay sporting it self on the surface of the Sea, a great Part appearing out of the Water.  The Sailors, one and all, as soon as they saw it, declar’d it the certain Forerunner of a Storm.  However, our Ship kept on its Course, before a fine Gale, till we had near passed over half the Bay; when, all on a sudden, there was such a hideous Alteration, as makes Nature recoil on the very Reflection.  Those Seas that seem’d before to smile upon us, with the Aspect of a Friend, now in a Moment chang’d their flattering Countenance into that of an open Enemy; and Frowns, the certain Indexes of Wrath, presented us with apparent Danger, of which little on this Side Death could be the Sequel.  The angry Waves cast themselves up into Mountains, and scourg’d the Ship on every Side from Poop to Prow:  Such Shocks from the contending Wind and Surges!  Such Falls from Precipices of Water, to dismal Caverns of the same uncertain Element!  Although the latter seem’d to receive us in Order to skreen us from the Riot of the former, Imagination could offer no other Advantage than that of a Winding-Sheet, presented and prepared for our approaching Fate.  But why mention I Imagination?  In me ’twas wholly dormant.  And yet those Sons of stormy Weather, the Sailors, had theirs about them in full Stretch; for seeing the Wind and Seas so very boisterous, they lash’d the Rudder of the Ship, resolv’d to let her drive, and steer herself; since it was past their Skill to steer her.  This was our Way of sojourning most Part of that tedious Night; driven where the Winds and Waves thought fit to drive us, with all our Sails quite lower’d and flat upon the Deck.  If Ovid, in the little Archipelagian Sea, could whine out his jam jam jacturus, &c. in this more dismal Scene, and much more dangerous Sea (the Pitch-like Darkness of the Night adding to all our sad Variety of Woes) what Words in Verse or Prose could serve to paint our Passions, or our Expectations?  Alas! our only Expectation was in the Return of Morning; It came at last; yet even slowly as it came, when come, we thought it come too soon, a new Scene of sudden Death being all the Advantage of its first Appearance.  Our Ship was driving full Speed, towards the Breakers on the Cabritton Shore, between Burdeaux and Bayonne; which filled us with Ideas more terrible than all before, since those were past, and these seemingly as certain.  Beside, to add to