Saturday, October 26th

Motion so violent in the night that I went up about four o'clock to look at the sea, thinking it must be running heavily. Found it blowing a slapping breeze on our quarter—two stun' sails set and going eleven knots! She kept up this pace all day and the reckoning at noon shews her a distance in the last twenty-four hours of 250 miles. No observation for latitude today. As I write the wind increases to a gale. All the passengers below, of course—the steerage ones under hatches. Employed all morning upon the Cockroach and finished the 'Story of the Charlotte Jane'. A great many Cape pigeons and hens about the ship. Very hard to write in the cabin as everything is rolling about and the deck above is leaking down torrents upon us.