cams_Willshire_b16_F007_001_002

our way through a patch of raspberry bushes, (which I
did not find very agreeable) useing [using] my gun for a cane, like
the rest, when the hamer [hammer] caught in a small vine, no larger
than a needle, and caught at the half-cock: had the vine
broke a second sooner, I should have been shot in the
heart and killed instantly, for my gun carried an half ounce
ball; I have had death stare me in the face, many a time,
but I never felt that danger was so near, as it was at that time.
My life hung on a vine, you may say.

Now I will give you a few accounts of my hairbreadth escapés
at sea. When I was in a schooner riding out a heavy gale in
the Gulf of Mexico, the mute came to me and asked me if I
thought I could go aloft and secure one of the topsails that had
got adrift: I told him I could: he said he would not send a
man aloft, when the vessel was rearing and pitching in the
heavy seas, for it was as much as a man's life was worth, to go
aloft in such a time. I found it necessary to climb up the
top-mast shrouds and I no sooner let go of them they snapped
in two like two pieces of thread although they were large ropes:
had they broke while I was on them, I should have been hurled
at the distance of ninety feet, either on deck or overboard: if I fell overboard
they possibly might have saved me by throwing me a line, if the shock
of falling from such a height, did not kill or prevent me from catching
the line: if I had fell on deck,I should have been killed
instantly.

At another time when we were bound from New Orleans to
New York, just as we got clear of the West Indies, we took fire
and had great trouble to keep the fire from catching the riging [rigging]
and going aloft: had it caught in the riging [rigging], all hopes of saving