by dark dense clouds, and seemed to forebode much wind.  This occasioned as to clew up all our sails, and presently after six water-spouts were seen.  Four rose and spent themselves between us and the land; that is, to the south-west of us, the fifth was without us, the sixth first appeared in the south-west, at the distance of two or three miles at least from us.  Its progressive motion was to the north-east, not in a straight but in a crooked line, and passed within fifty yards of our stern, without our feeling any of its effects.  The diameter of the base of this spout I judged to be about fifty or sixty feet; that is, the sea within this space was much agitated, and foamed up to a great height.  From this a tube, or round body, was formed, by which the water or air, or both, was carried in a spiral stream up to the clouds.  Some of our people said they saw a bird in the one near us, which was whirled round like the fly of a jack, as it was carried upwards.  During the time these spouts lasted, we had now and then light puffs of wind from all points of the compass, with some few slight showers of rain, which generally fell in large drops; and the weather continued thick and hazy for some hours after, with variable light breezes of wind.  At length the wind fixed in its old point, and the sky resumed its former serenity.  Some of these spouts appeared at times to be stationary; and at other times to have a quick but very unequal progressive motion, and always in a crooked line, sometimes one way and sometimes another; so that, once or twice, we observed them to cross one another.  From the ascending motion of the bird, and several other circumstances, it was very plain to us that these spouts were caused by whirlwinds, and that the water in them was violently hurried upwards, and did not descend from the clouds as I have heard some assert.  The first appearance of them is by the violent agitation and rising up of the water; and, presently after, you see a round column or tube forming from the clouds above, which apparently descends till it joins the agitated water below.  I say apparently, because I believe it not to be so in reality, but that the tube is already formed from the agitated water below, and ascends, though at first it is either too small or too thin to be seen.  When the tube is formed, or becomes visible, its apparent diameter increaseth till it is pretty large; after that it decreaseth, and at last it breaks or becomes invisible towards the lower part.  Soon after the sea below resumes its natural state, and the tube is drawn, by little and little, up to the clouds, where it is dissipated.  The same tube would sometimes have a vertical, and sometimes a crooked or inclined direction.  The most rational account I have read of water-spouts, is in Mr Falconer’s Marine Dictionary, which is chiefly collected from the philosophical writings of the ingenious Dr Franklin.  I have been told that the firing of a gun will dissipate them; and I am very sorry I did not try the experiment, as we were near enough, and had a gun ready for the purpose; but as soon as the danger was past, I thought no more about it, being too attentive in viewing these extraordinary meteors At the time this happened, the barometer stood at 29, 75, and the thermometer at 56.