When naval officer George Spearing went gathering nuts in a wood near Glasgow in 1769, he fell into a deep hole, where he survived a whole week before friends came to rescue him. But, as he says in his vivid account of the incident, "alas! I was still to undergo greater sufferings than I had yet endured."

Spearing's account of his ordeal was a popular tale in magazines when he wrote it up years later.

It is reproduced here in full, together with an introduction by Spearing's descendant, Charles Miller, completing the story with an account of what happened to Spearing's family in the years, and generations, that followed the incident.