The poor Arniston was seen at sunset, on the day the gale commenced, with most of her sails split, but not otherwise in danger, for she had a good offing, and the wind was not blowing on shore.

Three heavy gales followed in such quick succession during the next week, that not only the ordinary course, but the velocity of the current was changed, and instead of running, as it almost always does, to the westward, it set, on the days in question, to the south-eastward.

According to the most moderate allowance for the current, all circumstances being taken into consideration, any navigator might fairly have supposed that, in the five days which elapsed from the 24th of May to the 28th inclusive, his ship would have been drifted to the westward by the current at least a hundred miles.

Our chronometers, however, distinctly showed us that we had been carried, not, as usual, to the westward, but actually to the eastward, a distance of more than a hundred miles; so that, in less than a week, there occurred upwards of two hundred miles of error in the dead reckoning.
The master of the Arniston, doubtless, after making every allowance, according to the best authorities, and working by the most exact rules of navigation of which he could avail himself, naturally inferred that his ship was more than a hundred miles to the westward of the Cape, and he probably considered himself justified in bearing up before a south-easterly gale, and steering, as he had so much reason to suppose he was doing, straight for St.Helena.
It is very important to remark, in passing, to professional men, that no ship off the Cape, and under any circumstances, ought ever to bear up, without first heaving the deep sea-lead.

If soundings are obtained on the Bank, it is a sure symptom that the ship is not sufficiently advanced to the westward to enable her to steer with safety to the north-north-westward for St.Helena.It is clear the ship in question must have omitted this precaution.
All that is known of this fatal shipwreck is simply that the Arniston, with a flowing sheet, and going nine knots, ran among the breakers in Struy's Bay, nearly a hundred miles to the eastward of the Cape.