"If it were not for this gale I would try to run for Sandy Point, where we might get assistance, as I've heard of the captain of a collier once, whose ship caught fire in the cargo like mine, careening his ship ashore there, when, taking out the burning coals, he saved the rest of his freight and stowed it again, so that he was able to resume his voyage and deliver most of the cargo at its destination.

But this wind is right in one's teeth, either to get to Sandy Point or fetch any other port within easy reach." "We moost ae just trust to Proveedence!" replied the mate.
"Oh, yes, that's all very well," said the skipper, impatiently.

"But, still, Providence expects us to do something to help ourselves--what do you suggest ?" "I canna thaenk o' naught, Cap'en," replied Mr Macdougall, in his lugubrious way.
"Hang it, neither can I!" returned the skipper, as if angry with himself because of no timely expedient coming to his mind; but just at that moment the gale suggested something to him--at all events in the way of finding occupation! All at once, the wind, which had been blowing furiously from the northwards, shifted round without a moment's warning to the south-west, catching the ship on her quarter, and heeling her over so to leeward that her yard-arms dipped in the heavy rolling sea.
For a second, it seemed as if we were going over; for the _Esmeralda_ remained on her beam ends without righting again, the waves breaking clean over her from windward, and sweeping everything movable from her decks fore and aft; but then, as the force of the blast passed away, she slowly laboured up once more, the masts swaying to and fro as if they were going by the board, for they groaned and creaked like living things in agony.
"Put the helm up--hard up!" shouted the skipper to the man at the wheel; but, as the poor fellow tried to carry out the command, the tiller "took charge," as sailors say, hurling him right over the wheel against the bulwarks, which broke his leg and almost pitched him over the side.

Had this occurred it would have been utterly impossible to have saved him.
Mr Macdougall and I immediately rushed aft; and, the two of us grasping the spokes, managed to turn the wheel round with our united strength; but it was too late to get the ship to pay off, for, a fresh blast of wind striking her full butt, she was taken aback, the foremast coming down with a crash across the deck, carrying with it the bowsprit and maintopmast, the mizzen-topmast following suit a minute afterwards.
This was bad enough in all conscience, without our having the consciousness that besides this loss of all our spars, making the vessel a hopeless log rolling at the mercy of the winds and waves, our cargo of coals was on fire in the hold, forming a raging volcano beneath our feet! Fortune was cruel.

Mishap had followed on mishap.