[19]

CHAPTER I

The Voyage to the West Indies.

Burnt Island Road¹ on board the Jamaica Packet

9 o'Clock Evening 25th Octr 1774.

WE are now got on Board, heartily fatigued, yet not likely to sleep very sound in our new apartments, which I am afraid will not prove either very agreeable or commodious; nor, from what I can see, will our Ship be an exception to the reflections thrown on Scotch Vessels in general, as indeed, nothing can be less cleanly than our Cabin, unless it be its Commander, and his friend and bedfellow the Supercargo. I hinted to the Captain that I thought our Cabin rather dirty. He assured me every Vessel was so 'till they got out to Sea, but that as soon as we were under way, he wou'd stow away the things that were lumbering about, and then all wou'd be neat during the Voyage. I appear to believe him; it were in vain to dispute; here we are, and here we must be for sometime. My brother has laid [20] in store of whatever may render our Situation agreeable, and I have laid in a store of resolution to be easy, not to be sick if I can help it, and to keep good humour, whatever I lose; and this I propose to do by considering it, what it is, merely a Voyage.

As we have no passengers but those of our own family, we will have all the accommodation the Vessel is capable of affording, and we can expect no more.

My Brother has not yet got on Board, I dare say he will be sadly fatigued with the business he has had to go thro'. I will send this on shore with the boat that brings him off.

¹Burntisland is a seaport of county Fife, on the north side of the Firth of Forth, five miles across from Leith and Edinburgh. As there was a ferry from Leith, it is quite probable that Miss Schaw and her party drove to Leith in carriages and there boarded the ferryboat for Burntisland. The seaport has an excellent harbour and was a favorite anchorage for vessels entering or leaving the firth, but the fact that the owner of the vessel lived at Burntisland may furnish an additional reason for the place of departure. Some of the Scottish regiments serving in the Revolutionary War sailed from this port, and as early as 1627 we meet with a vessel called the Blessing of Burntisland.

² Miss Schaw was accompanied by her brother, Alexander, and by the three children of John Rutherfurd, of North Carolina-Fanny, aged eighteen, John Jr., aged twelve, and William Gordon, aged ten, all of whom, though born in North Carolina, had been sent to Scotland in 1767 for their education.

³Scotland.

⁴The “best of brothers” was, of course, Alexander; “the other, lost from childhood,” was Miss Schaw's brother Robert probably younger than herself. Later in the narrative, she says that he “had not seen a bleaching-washing since he was a boy,” which would mean that he must have left Scotland at a very early age. For a further account of him, see Appendix XII.

⁵“Mrs Mary” was Mrs. Mary Miller, Miss Schaw's waiting woman, who accompanied her mistress on her travels. Whether she attended Miss Schaw during her Lisbon sojourn is doubtful (see below, page 210, note.)

⁶The “Channel” is the Firth of Forth.

⁷The Captain was Thomas Smith, and the vessel a brig or frigate of eighty tons, built in Massachusetts in 1772 and registered at Kirkcaldy, a seaport of Fife, northeast of Burntisland and the nearest port with a naval office. Captain Smith had registered the vessel on October 22, three days before sailing (see below, page 144, note).

⁸The owner of the ship, the Jamaica Packet, was George Parker, who had lived in Wilmington from 1762 to 1771 as a householder and merchant, and was well known to Rutherfurd and the Schaws. He had been a town commissioner in 1764, and in 1766, as owner of the ship Nancy, had taken part in the protest against the stamps during the Stamp Act troubles. In 1771 he decided to leave Wilmington and go to Burntisland, where he had a brother. Consequently, he sold his house on Market Street, his lands, negroes, pettiauger, furniture, chaise, etc., for £910 (Wilmington, Register's Office, Conveyances, F, 157-160) and returned to Scotland. He seems to have been under some obligation to Rutherfurd, but in his dealings with Miss Schaw and her party showed very little honesty or friendship. There are references to him in the Brunswick County Records, Conveyances, A, 129-130, the North Carolina Colonial Records, VI, 177-178, and the Wilmington Town Records.

⁹Alexander was going out as searcher of customs at St. Christopher.

¹⁰“Steerage” in the sailing vessels of the day was the space below decks aft, that is, in the stern of the vessel. The accommodations, as the narrative shows, were straitened and uncomfortable. “Steerage passengers” are mentioned quite early in the eighteenth century.

¹¹The Yahoos of Gulliver's Travels are described as brutes with human forms and vicious and uncleanly habits.

¹²For the highland emigration of these years, see Appendix I.

¹³Though it is hardly possible to say more about the supercargo, his character as “a republican and a violent American” is a sufficient identification. He will be met with again (pp. 64, 65). It is evident that Miss Schaw did not like him, deeming him a silly fellow and a fool. A “supercargo” was an officer of a merchant ship who was entrusted with the sale of the cargo and other commercial transactions. Such an officer required not only a knowledge of business, but also a certain amount of diplomatic skill to deal with extraordinary situations. The following explanation of the origin of this functionary is given by an old American naval commander. “Captains of ships were not often educated men; they began to go to sea very young, they learned just enough to navigate their ships in the simple way and with the crude instruments of that day. They could handle their ships under all circumstances and they were proficients with lead and line, etc., but they were not merchants, and generally knew nothing about buying and selling cargoes; consequently it was necessary that a merchant should go with the ship to do the cargo-selling and buying, and that man was the Supercargo. They were always men of mercantile education, often of extensive education, collegiate, etc., etc. At sea, after preparing their account-books, etc., they had little to do and they often learned to handle the ship, to navigate, etc., and became expert seamen. Bowditch, whose work on Navigation [1802] is the basis of most navigation books and whose own work is used by three-fourths of the navigators of the world, was the supercargo of a ship. He learned seamanship for want of something else to do. He was a college graduate and stood high as a mathematician, and when he took up navigation on board the ship he found the methods in use were crude and erroneous and he proposed to make new rules and processes and actually did make new rules from day to day, which the captain used and pronounced much better than the old methods.” Letter from Commander Edward Hooker, November 9, 1894 (Connecticut Historical Society).

¹⁴“Teague” was a word for a simple, unsophisticated Irishman, used generally in a half contemptuous sense. In origin the name was that of a faithful Irish servant, blundering and inefficient, one of the characters in Sir Robert Howard's comedy, “The Committee” (1665).

¹⁵At this point the route of the vessel is obscured by Miss Schaw's confusion of the Orkney and Shetland Islands. The islands they had “just passed” were not the Shetlands but the Orkneys, from one of which the Lawsons and others must have come. Miss Schaw could not have seen the Shetlands at all, for the next land, which the vessel must have passed on the south side, was the Fair Isle, a small island three miles long and two broad, lying midway between the two larger groups. The “safe basin” referred to was the only harbor that the island possessed, a shallow indentation on the eastern side, rarely, if ever, frequented by ships. All habitations were on the south, so that in watching what was going on Miss Schaw stood at the rail facing north. An excellent map and description of this Fair Isle may be found in Tudor, The Orkneys and Shetland, ch. xxxiii.

¹⁶The “cruel Author of all their woes” was Sir Lawrence Dundas, who became the proprietor in 1766 and was living at the time at Arniston, an estate near Edinburgh.

¹⁷By the “last war in America” probably the French and Indian War is meant.

¹⁸Dead lights were the heavy double windows or shutters put up outside the cabin windows to keep out the water in case of a storm.

¹⁹Twelve days have passed.

²⁰The reference is to Lord Kames's Elements of Criticism, three volumes, Edinburgh, 1762. There was a third edition with additions, published in 1765, two volumes. American editions were issued in 1794 and 1871. Henry Home, Lord Kames, was a judge of the court of sessions in Scotland, who died in 1782. He was a well-known barrister, judge, and writer, who tried several cases in which some of those who emigrated to North Carolina-James Hogg, for example-were plaintiffs. There is a good account of him in the Dictionary of National Biography and records of cases tried before him can be found in the Scots Magazine. Boswell, in recording Dr. Johnson's prejudices against Scotland, cites his opinion of Kames. “But Sir,” said Boswell, “we have Lord Kames.” “You have Lord Kames” (replied Johnson), “keep him, ha, ha, ha! We don't envy you him” (Boswell's Life, II, 54.) The books in the cabin were brought on board by Alexander Schaw for the use of the party. They were left at St. Christopher on his departure from that island in January, 1775, but whether afterwards recovered or not we cannot say. Alexander Schaw's will (1810) mentions books among his possessions.

²¹A jury mast was one rigged for temporary service in an emergency.

²²Greenock, at the mouth of the Clyde, is the seaport of Glasgow.

²³The Highlanders had bound themselves to the master of the ship in return for their food and transportation. Thus they had become indentured servants, whose time for four, five, or six years might be sold on their arrival in the colony to whomsoever would buy. The buying of these indentures or contracts was a recognized method of obtaining laborers in nearly all the British colonies in America, West Indian and continental alike. The hardships involved and the extent to which the servants suffered practical slavery differed with the period and the colony.

²⁴A cant word for mistaking a cloud for land.

²⁵Thomas Salmon, A New Geographical and Historical Grammar, with a set of twenty-two maps, London, octavo, 1749. Sixth edition, 1758. There were later editions also.

²⁶The knowledge of languages possessed by Alexander Schaw and Miss Schaw's later friend, Archibald Neilson (pp. 218-221), is suggestive of the culture of Edinburgh and other lowland Scottish towns at this time.

²⁷A Scottish word meaning the improved grounds around a country house.

²⁸A Mediterranean pass was a necessary document for all ships, British and colonial, trading in the Mediterranean or along the Atlantic coast, north and south of the Straits of Gibraltar. It was a permit on parchment, partly engraved and partly written, issued by the British Admiralty to protect vessels from attack by the Barbary cruisers, under the terms of treaties previously entered into with the Barbary states. A single pass could be used for more than one voyage. Under Admiralty rules, it was to be endorsed by the British consul at every port entered and when done with to be returned to the issuing office. The form and wording were as follows [King of England, etc.] to all persons whom these may concern greeting. Suffer the ship _____ to pass, with her company, passengers, goods, and merchandizes, without any let, hinderance, seizure, or molestation, the said ship appearing unto us, by good testimony, to belong to our subjects. and to no foreigner. Given under our sign manual and the seal of the Admiralty, at the court at _____, this _____ day of _____, in the year of our Lord, one thousand and seven hundred and _____. By his Majesty's Command, [Signature of the Secretary to the Admiralty] [Signature of the King]

²⁹There is today no “St. Thomas” among the Azores; the reference may be to the island of Terceira. “Pecoa” is now Pico.

³⁰Five days have elapsed.

³¹The incident of meeting the Boyne offers the only serious difficulty that we have encountered in reconciling the statements of the journal with the evidence from other sources. Miss Schaw says definitely that they met the Boyne on December 3, the log of the Boyne says with equal definiteness that that vessel “spoke a brigg for Antigo com'd from Leith” on November 17, a discrepancy of more than two weeks. Either Miss Schaw is wrong in her date or the entry in the log concerns another vessel than the Jamaica Packet. The former is the more likely explanation, as the Boyne “saw Cape Ann,” that is, the coast of Massachusetts, on December 7, which would have been impossible had she been seen by the packet on December 3. The captain of the Boyne, whom Miss Schaw so vigorously condemns, was Broderick Hartwell. Had she and others on the packet, particularly that violent republican, the supercargo, though aware that the Boyne was taking soldiers to America, foreseen the part that those soldiers were to play in American history, they might have been more lively in their comments. The Boyne, the Asia, which carried Major Pitcairn, and the Somerset, which was the consort referred to, were transporting the marine detachments that fought in the battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill. Miss Schaw, without realizing it, had witnessed a significant event in the history of the American Revolution. Oddly enough, “little Billie” was gazing at a vessel bearing the same name as that on which he was to serve as acting lieutenant in 1794, nineteen years later. The Boyne of 1774 was a third-rate of 74 guns and 300 men; that of 1794 was the flagship of Sir John Jervis (afterwards Admiral Earl St. Vincent), a second-rate of 98 guns and 772 men, which was commissioned in 1792 and sailed from England with “little Billie” on board in November, 1793.

³²The pilot fish was so called because often seen with a shark, swimming near a ship, from which the sailors imagined that it acted as a pilot to the shark.

³³Grampus.

³⁴That is, a mock divorce suit. In eighteenth century Scottish law a commissary court was a probate and divorce court.

³⁵The jolly boat was generally slung at the stern of the vessel. Regarding the “awful ceremony,” the author of A Brief Account of the Island of Antigua (1789), who made the voyage from the Downs to Antigua in 1786, says, “I had almost forgot to observe that on passing the tropic of Cancer, the old custom of ducking and shaving such have not before crossed it, was performed by the seamen with some humour on one man and two boys. The passengers waved the ceremony by a liquor fine” (p. 5).

³⁶Evidently meaning that if the sailors would give up their claim to the clothes of the emigrants, he (Mr. Schaw) would pay for their grog.

³⁷Dunkeld is a town in Perthshire on the west branch of the Tay. It was formerly the home of the Duchess of Atholl (p. 243) and quite possibly had been at one time the home of Miss Schaw. The scenery, both above and below the town, was greatly admired.

³⁸The author of the Brief Account says, “The new barracks and military hospital, situated to the eastward of the town, are spacious and healthy and allowed to be the most complete in the islands. There is also a barrack on Rat Island, in St. John's Harbour, but it has been suffered to go to ruin and is now [1786] out of use.” The “high rock,” to which Miss Schaw refers is Rat Island; the barracks there, built in 1754-1755, were evidently occupied at the time of her arrival, for the new barracks could hardly have been completed in 1774. According to Sir Ralph Payne, governor at this time, the barracks contained four companies of the 2d Battalion of Royal Americans, exceedingly incomplete as to numbers, since they amounted to not more than 87 or 88 effective men. These companies had come to the island in 1772, replacing the 68th Regiment of Foot, which had been there since 1764. The fort is James Fort erected in 1700, now dismantled and used as a quarantine station.

³⁹Antigua is one of the Leeward Islands, forty miles east of Nevis and twenty-seven miles from Montserrat. Its chief town, St. Johns, was not incorporated until July, 1783. The best contemporary description of the island is that contained in Sir Ralph Payne's “Answers to Queries,” written on June 26, 1774, just three months before the lady's arrival. “Antigua is in its greatest extent about 14 miles in length and in its narrowest breadth about 5 miles. Its highest hills are to the southward, but it is in general by no means a mountainous island. It contains 69,277 acres and 108 square miles and 1/4. The soil on the north side is a black mould or marle, and to the southward a strong clay. The body of the island lies in latitude 17” 10' and its longitude from the meridian of London is 60 degrees west. The climate of Antigua as well as of the other Leeward Islands, is between the Tropics under the Torrid Zone, and like the other islands would be insufferably warm, were it not for almost constant breezes that blow chiefly from the eastward, and render it healthy and agreeable” (Public Record Office, C.O. 152: 54. no. 17). The number of its white inhabitants in 1774 was about 2590, of blacks 37,308.

⁴⁰October 25 to December 12.