about midnight
I had a good many friends to care for me , and one for whom I had more than friendship . We had magnificent weather and plenty of time to get the ship into order ; indeed I , with others who had never been to sea , began to entertain the notion that we were to glide on as smoothly as we were then doing during the whole voyage . We were to be disagreeably undeceived . A gale sprang up with little warning about midnight , and hove us almost on our beam-ends ; and though we righted with the loss only of a spar or two , we were tumbled about in a manner subversive of all comfort , to say the least of it . When morning broke , the hitherto trim and well-behaved fleet were scattered in all directions , and several within sight received some damage or other . The wind fell as quickly as it had risen , and during the day the vessels kept returning to their proper stations in the convoy . When night came on several were still absent , but were seen approaching in the distance .