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he cabins, everything was tossed about pell-mell and sailors fell overboard and could not be saved; yet the fleet by the evening of the 9th was sailing with calmer weather through the dangerous region of the Scilly Islands, where, over a mass of rocks and reefs a warning lighthouse stood. After sunset the last land was seen to disappear under the horizon, the promontory, Landsend. On the next day the cables, which usually are on the capstan, were coiled on deck; still greater waves, and more violent motions of the ship indicated that the vessels had reached the great ocean. Who may be the master of the ocean was made evident during the very next few days to the astonished soldiers, when a Danish and later two Swedish East Indian ships were passing through the fleet; these then lowered their flags and a sail of the middle mast, as soon as they were within the distance of a shot. This was the mark of esteem which every foreign ship on meeting an English man-of-war or squadron in the Atlantic Ocean was to render to it, as indicating the recognition of Great Britain's sovereignty there.
A perfect calm had set in; the great waves rose to an astonishing height, and, although at a time of wind and full sail, the vibrations of the ships are lessened by the quick forward motion, yet in calm the opposite is true, for the ships were heaving and pitching, so that there seemed to be danger of complete capsizing, or at any rate of the loss of the masts. In the darkness of night the foam sparkled on the ships and at times the lightning flashed and quivered on the waves. Several ships had already met with accidents, in getting badly damaged by running against each other, and in some the constant pumping out of water was made necessary. The ship Good Intent ran with its prow into the stern of the Claudina, on which there was a company of the regiment von Knyphausen under Lieutenant Baum, and to the great anguish and cry of the crew and troops made a great hole over the cabin. The ship Speedwell, on which there was
The Voyage of The First Hessian Army from Portsmouth to New York, 1776, page 2
by Albert Pfister