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irnnlE FOLf I IAN PUBLISHED WEEKLY, AT HONOLULU, OAIIU, SANDWICH ISLANDS. b.J. JAItVUS, Editor. SATURDAY, JUNE 6, 1840. Vol. 1. No. 1. Terms of the POLYNESIAN. ttBicniPrio!. Ei;jht Dollars per annum, paya- . 1 IK ... . .V. II II .... rt iii ( Viincc: nan year, rive uoiuis, uumii, brce Dollars; single copies, 25 cents. Advehtmixg. $2, 23for thrco insertions of ono jure; fo.-ty tents for each continuincc; 1110:0 than a ' . . 1 4 . . I ? ilf and luss tlun a squ ire, $1, to ior nrsi inrce infer au, and 3!) cents itt etch alter insertion. Halt a jq nre,?l, 23 for first thrco insertions, and 21) cents for 4ich succeeding insertion. 1 X l. I .. . I. I I! 1 Term- 01 ciny auveuising maue Huonn on uppu latioii to the editor. ADVERTISEMENT. The first number of tho POLYNESIA M is issued and trib.i!ed is 11 specimen of its plan nnd typography. io.'.IiI it l)u continued beyond this number, which will upend upo.i the increase of subseibers. Should a suf kierit number he obtained to warrant its continuance, 1 ill be issued weekly for six months, at the end of Lliicli period, if it meets with a full share of public itroiuge, and be found a usef d p iper to the commu- lity, it will be continued yearly. Those individuals i ho wish to subscribe for the ensuing half year, will lleic leivc their names nnd subscriptions nt .Messrs. add & Ck, 1'ierce & Brewer's, or with tho Editor. Advertisements or cotnmunic itions to be left at ci- icrtlie above mentioned stoves. j COMMUNICATED I A STORM AT SEA. Jly Rrv. Fircit W. Taylor, Chaplain, U. S. N. "I pretend not to be weather-wise, ilr. M." ! remarked to the purser, as I .1.1 Itim on the quarterdeck, while our :..p was just ready to trip her anchor on V. . ... ! m orning 01 our leaving Tun? K.00 but if all sailor's signs be true, we e more wind before we have i v, bm f; li llUV( 1 SS. The Jr,!ni Adams, in a different posi tion, was already under way, being towed t rou.-ii a dii.vrcnt pass from ourselves, as $ r position was more favorable with re- rJ to the tide, which delayed us for an lour and more before we could double ie head of Tung Koo island. It was four bells, or ten o'clock in the lorning, as our ship unmoored her last old on the celestial empire. The skv as deeply blue, and beautiful beyond fry morning I had before remarked ; and 1 tins field of loveliness, lav the soft and boated cloud, with its spread train and wiery edge, more enchanting in its encillcd fringe than ever before t had served that species of those airv cours- N, which the seamen call the marc's-tails! bey slumbered in their unearthly and 'tei rest as they lay, few and at far dis- p ccs from each other ; with the macker- hcks, in their chequered and brokon vers, filling up more closely the higher- 1? portions 01 tne blue deep blue con- vc. l ew mornings ever broke more fir; few skies ever looked more beautiful 1.. 1 inosc clouds in the play of their elcc- rcc points varied the rich and sunny hea . One mystic nimbus was alone to be Nnamid all this rich beauty, as it vvrcath- 3 us dark lolds around the highest peak Untin, an island in the near distance. r oav, omcs me iigntest, are not TO unclouded." The breeze springing r? c stood down the roads of Macao, I Wore described, under a gentle press I ivasg, unablc to take the more north ern and eastern pass, and soon after dis missed the pilot, with the hopes and the prospects of gaining, with the increasing wind, a long stretch before night-fall, from this island-bound coast. All were congratulating themselves and each other on their happy escape from Tung Koo. We had seen enough of the celestials at their homes ; and this point seemed now to us the starting place of our return to our own dear land ; while every benevolent heart looked forward to our soon gaining a more northern latitude, which, it Was hoped and believed would give substance to many of the shadows which were moving, like so many ghosts, over our decks, and add nerve to the de cayed energies of tho ship's company. Every step now seemed to plant itself more firmly on the deck, and every chest breathed already more freely as the fresh ening breeze bore on our ships, until, with the sun-set, all apprehensions of a lee shore escaped the visions of the wary sailor. "Stand by to furl the royals, I say," cried the officer of deck, after the com modore had taken a few rounds on the quarter deck, and scanned the prospects of the weather for the night. "Haul taught in royals," was the next order; and a moment had not passed when those far up sails, looking so like the palm of a man's hand, as they arc stretched upon the highest spars of the ship, were gathered to the slim and high est yards of the masts. "We divined not wrongly, purser, as we read that beautiful sky this morning, 'Mackerel backs and mares' tails, Make high ships carry low sails.' " The purser and myself, at. this pleas ant hour, were trespassing with other offi cers of the wardroom, on the arm chest of the quarter deck, while these orders were being given. "Man the top-gallant clewlines lay aloft to furl the top-gallant sail," again cried the officer through his trumpet, as the breeze continued to freshen and the ship, under the impulse of the pressure upon the canvas, now and ever met with a bound that bid defiance to the wave, the cleft surge, which the fresh breeze of the day had begun to conjure up to a greater magnitude each moment we had been deepening our water, in its blue and fathom. "Haul taught let go the halliards and le? sheet clew down; let go the gather sheet clew up." A moment only pas sed, and the top-gallant sails of the fore, main, and mizen, lay as snugly to their yards as ever lady plaited surplice over stomacher, or roll on dress. The ship was deemed snug for the night; and as the hours advanced with the continuance of the fresh and favorable breeze, all, save the watches in their turn , were lost at the usual time in their hammocks, cot, or bed. The hour had reached a little past the mid-watch of the night, without awak ening the apprehensions of the officers of the deck beyond the attentive marking of the weather; until, a dark squall, as if magic had gained some new powers in rapidity of movement, came down upon the ship, and with its heavy breath shiv ered to ribbons every remaining sail that was set. It was a sorry sight, as the day broke, to see the tattered sails, that had been with difficulty, gathered to the yards. The squall had now given place to a steady gale , increasing every hour in its force and fury; and the ship was now laying-to under her fore storm stay-sail and main and mizen trysails. The royal and top gallant yards had been sent down the top gallant masts housed the top sail yards, clewed down, and the Colum bia, in her storm dress, now abided the war of elements, the torrents of rain, and the hurricane of winds. The rains for a while ceased, while the winds yet drove the sheets of spray in their hor izontal layers from the cleft tops of the high waves, through the cordage of the nearly naked ship in volumes as drench ing as were the torrents themselves. A new course was bent, while the frigate lay-to like a life-boat on the billow, though the sea had now swollen to the mountain surge. The John Adams, under the same sail, was near, at the windward, apparently with all things snug, like a phantom-craft, and at times under bare poles, as the two ships rose together, or again sunk, so that the trucks of either became for a moment invisible to each ship, and the next, rose with their hulls and every chord distinctly traceable on the wild and dun sky. And then, those winds those howling winds of the gale, as they murmured with a voice more doleful than could be the chaunt of a thousand spirits of lost ma riners cngulphed by the raging storm, came through our rigging, with omens of dark things to the ship. Thus the two coursers stood on their parallel tracks for the day, bounding from surge to surge, or drifting from ravine of water to leeward ravine, while the roll of the sea spread out its giant proportionsj now trembling from its height to find its level, as the top broke in its cataract of foam to the deep and blue declivities of the billows, or at times threw its broad sheet in a chrystal river across the bul warks of our ship. The wind in its fury fell not as the coming night shut in again upon the dark sea, but its fearful impulses in creased as the night watches advanced. The ship was thoroughly soaked by the driving surges which dashed against the Columbia, now penetrating the partial opening of the closed port-holes or coming from the hatch-ways of the upper deck; and our ward room was afloat from tho sea that drove with irresistable. force aga inst the storm-posts and penetrated by the rudder coat. And the sick were in their darkness and distress but delaying death. But wet as was the ship and shivered as were her sails, the revelation of tho morning had not been anticipated for its fearful apprehension and the critical cir cumstances in which the gallant bark was to be found. The topgallant masts, not withstanding they had been housed and the back-stays sheep-shanked and well taught, bent like a withe in the roll of the ship; and the morning discover ed, as trifles in these circumstances, that the main top gallant mast had been car ried away, together with the main trysail mast; and one of the boats, without hav ing been noticed as it was disengaged by some surge in the loud roar of the winds from the davits, had gone on its wild buffet of the waves. With sea room, the gale might, if it please, blow its worst in typhoon, hurricane and tempest, and we would trust the good Columbia to her stumps, evincing as she did, her staunch qualities, without admitting a drop of water through her lower planks; and bounding and rcboundinar like some light but solid trunk of a forest mammoth, which the storm for ages might beat unin jured and unyielding, so staunch was sho rn the tight work of her admirable me chanism. But the rock and the coral reef, and shoal, and sand bar, in unison with the surge of the open ocean, and the wild gale that shows no pity in its madness, would make even a thing so fair and faithful as the ship that had so justly re. ceived our confidence and attachment, but a cradle of bulrushes were she once to strike upon them, in the tumult of elements that were now driving above, and raging around, and rolling beneath us. But it was hoped that we had gain ed an offing the first twenty-four hours, of one hunded and fifty miles, and it must be a fearful drift of tides and drive of winds, that could have borne us in dan gerous nearness to the coast. The dark clouds had admitted of no observation,, and the log could not give us the tides and the drift. The second morning broke, and the storm had not lowered its voice; and tln hurricane in its torrent tem pest, blended its fury with the heaviest roll of the sea, heaving, in its wildest com motion. N'ne but the mariner then, can estimate the dovelopcment of the day break as it fell on a changed sea in its color for the deep blue of the fathom less ocean to the pale green of sound ings. The lead in its cast gave the shal low water of twenty five fathoms; and in the drift of a few more casts, but twenty two fathoms, still decreasing, while the elements combined their concentrated and , unabating furies. . To-be continued. I in