An essay for the recording of illustrious providences

All things thus circumstanced, the suddenness of the stroke and distress (which is apt to amaze men, especially when no less then life is concerned) the extreme coldness of the weather, it being a sharp season, that persons out of the water were in danger of freezing, the unaptness of the persons to help themselves, being mostly Women, one big with Child, and near the time of her Travel (who was also carried away under the Ice) the other as unskilled and unactive to do any thing for self-preservation as almost any could be, the Waters deep, that there was no hope of footing, no passage to either shore, in any eye of reason, neither with their little Canoe, by reason of the Ice, nor without it, the Ice being thin and rotten, and full of holes. Now, that all should be brought off safely without the loss of life, or wrong to health, was counted in the day of it a Remarkable Providence. To say, how it was done, is difficult, yet something of the manner of the Deliverance may be mentioned ⟨p. 37⟩the abovesaid Nathaniel Bissel perceiving their danger, and being active in swimming, endeavoured what might be, the preservation of himself, and some others, he strove to have swum to the upper Ice, but the Stream being too hard, he was forced downwards to the lower Ice, where by reason of the slipperiness of the Ice, and disadvantage of the Stream, he found it difficult getting up; at length by the good hand of providence, being gotten upon the Ice, he saw one of the Women swimming down under the Ice, and perceiving an hole, or open place, some few Rods below, there he waited, and took her up as she swum along. The other two Women were in the River, till the two Men in the little Canoe came for their relief; at length all of them got their heads above the Water, and had a little time to pause, though a long, and difficult, and dangerous way to any shore, but by getting their little Canoe upon the Ice, and carrying one at a time over hazardous Places, they did (though in a long while) get all safe to the shore, from whence they came.

All things thus circumstanced, the suddenness of the stroke and distress (which is apt to amaze men, especially when no less then life is concerned) the extream coldness of the weather, it being a sharp season, that persons out of the water were in danger of freezing, the unaptness of the persons to help themselves, being mostly Women, one big with Child, and near the time of her Travel (who was also carried away under the Ice) the other as unskill'd and unactive to do any thing for self-preservation as almost any could be, the Waters deep, that there was no hope of footing, no passage to either shore, in any eye of reason, neither with their little Canoo, by reason of the Ice, nor without it, the Ice being thin and rotten, and full of holes. Now, that all should be brought off safely without the loss of life, or wrong to health, was counted in the day of it a Remarkable Providence. To say, how it was done, is difficult, yet something of the manner of the Deliverance may be mentioned