Publisher's Synopsis
It was in the latter part of the month of June, of the year 179-, that the angry wavesof the Bay of Biscay were gradually subsiding, after a gale of wind as violent as itwas unusual during that period of the year. Still they rolled heavily; and, at times, the wind blew up in fitful, angry gusts, as if it would fain renew the elementalcombat; but each effort was more feeble, and the dark clouds which had beensummoned to the storm now fled in every quarter before the powerful rays of thesun, who burst their masses asunder with a glorious flood of light and heat; and, ashe poured down his resplendent beams, piercing deep into the waters of thatportion of the Atlantic to which we now refer, with the exception of one object, hardly visible, as at creation, there was a vast circumference of water, bounded bythe fancied canopy of heaven. We have said, with the exception of one object; for inthe centre of this picture, so simple, yet so sublime, composed of the three greatelements, there was a remnant of the fourth. We say a remnant, for it was but thehull of a vessel, dismasted, water-logged, its upper works only floating occasionallyabove the waves, when a transient repose from their still violent undulationpermitted it to reassume its buoyancy. But this was seldom; one moment it wasdeluged by the seas, which broke as they poured over its gunwale; and the next itrose from its submersion, as the water escaped from the portholes at its side
