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CHAPTER XX.

The Ship becomes as leaky as before—All hands in turn at the Pumps.—Means adopted to reduce the Leaks.—I offend the late Governor, who orders me before the Mast,—Fall in with the Thisbe a second time, in company with several Transports.—Unhappy fate of one of them.—Arrive at Spithead.

HAVING resumed our voyage with a favouring breeze, and the ship being, to all appearance, tight and sea-worthy, with a pretty ample supply of wet and dry provisions, our prospects were now a little more cheering; and I looked forward with innate satisfaction to the moment when I should set my foot on English ground, free from the horrors attending a state of bondage, and at liberty to realize the ideas I had formed of atoning to society, and to my own conscience for the manifold errors of my past life.

We had, however, the mortification to find that the repairs the ship had undergone at Rio de Janiero, had only produced a temporary effect; for shortly after leaving that port, the ship again began to leak, and in a few days made as much water as before. The consequence was that all hands, ex-