Rough Passage to London: A Sea Captain's Tale

by Robin Lloyd

  He picked out Christopher Champlin’s new ship, the Sovereign, just in from London, already tied up at the Pine Street docking area. The Sovereign was twenty feet longer than the Hudson and slightly wider. Morgan had heard that her posh interior with polished mahogany tables, brass and mahogany railings, and carpeted floors was a far cry from the Hudson’s more spartan cabin area.

  He spotted the familiar figure of Captain Christopher Champlin now walking down the gangway as he headed for the offices at 68 South Street. He remembered what Champlin had told him the day he’d given him the surprising news that he was turning the Hudson over to him.

  “Mr. Morgan,” he said, “in my mind, you need a good deal more seasoning, but my brother and the other owners have decided to make you a captain. I’ve been overruled. With the ownership shares my brother has in almost all the ships, he has more clout than I do. I will say that you have a lot yet to learn. You’ll soon find out that a packet shipmaster’s job is as much about people as it is about the wind and the waves. I reckon that’s why the owners picked you from all the others. You have a way with people and they think the cabin passengers will like you. Maybe so, but I venture to say after a few voyages you may prefer to stay above deck than face the stormy complaints from the passengers down below. You will be serving a good many of the English on your voyages. Can you handle that Morgan?”

  Then he’d laughed and patted him on the back.

  “Who knows, Morgan? Maybe now that you’ve abandoned that foolhardy mission of yours to find your brother, you’ve developed the sound judgment to be captain. We’ll see. I’ll be keeping my eye on you.”

  Morgan had thanked him, never mentioning that he hadn’t forgotten his mission. To do so in his mind would have made him a quitter. He’d merely become more discreet in his search. In fact he was still more determined than ever to find Blackwood, but the man had disappeared, leaving no trace. It was as if he’d dreamed the whole chain of events leading up to the attack at the White Bull. He’d tried to find Hiram, but he had come up empty-handed.

  Several months after the incident, he’d gone back to the tavern disguised as a fish porter from Billingsgate Market. He wore a stiff flat leather hat with an upturned brim pulled down tightly over his face, and a coat that smelled like ripe haddock. The smell alone served to deflect any overly inquiring glances. He sat for hours alone in a dark corner drinking swipes, looking for any of the men who had attacked them. From this shadowy corner, he watched as the tavern’s customers stumbled out onto the street. He waited until Molly left with the servant girls and then walked over to the bar, where a perspiring, oily-faced Bull Bailey was wiping the bar counter. He grabbed the portly, bald-headed man by the shirt and pressed the tip of a knife blade into his rib cage.

  “Start talking, Bull. Tell me what happened to my shipmate. Where did they take him?”

  Dazed and disoriented, Bailey just shook his head. Then he recognized Morgan and his confusion turned to fear.

  “There was nothin’ we could do. That man Blackwood said ’e’d kill us all if we didn’t help ’im find some Yankee boy. ’E offered us money, real sovereign coins. We had no choice.”

  “What did he do with the man he grabbed? Where’s my shipmate?”

  “I don’t know. They took ’im away, maybe to the Charon. That’s Blackwood’s ship.”

  “Who is this Blackwood?”

  “Can’t say.”

  Morgan tightened his grip on the knife handle and leaned in toward Bailey until the man squealed with pain.

  “Enough. Enough. Some say ’e’s an opium trader. All I know is when ’e comes ’ere to the tavern, his pockets are always full o’ money.”

  “What does he look like?”

  “Big, tall, powerful bludger with curly black hair, square face with strange squinty eyes, almost like a Chinaman. That’s why they call him China Bill.”

  That conversation was on his mind as he stepped on board the smelly, sooty steamer that would shuttle him to the Hudson anchored in the middle of the East River. He wondered if he would ever see Hiram again. He spotted the ship’s new steward surrounded by a storehouse of supplies and crates of chickens and geese.

  “How are you, Mr. Lowery?”

  “Fine and dandy, Captain.”

  Morgan’s eyebrows rose in surprise. It was the first time that anyone had called him captain. It took him a moment to recover.

  “You and Mr. Scuttles making sure we won’t starve on this trip?”

  “Yes, sir, Captain Morgan. We’ll be sailing with full stomachs all the way. Plenty of belly timber on board from smoked Virginia hams to pickled oysters and barrels of potatoes and turnips.”

  Caiphus Lowery was a colored freedman from New Orleans, a tall, handsome-looking man with gray eyes and a bushy head of curly black hair that tumbled over his forehead and ears. Morgan had met him at Peck’s Slip one day when he was playing the bones alongside a couple of fiddlers. He was the steward for one of the other London packets with the Red Swallowtail Line. Morgan had heard that the man knew how to cook finely seasoned French dishes, New Orleans style. He thought that those culinary skills might come in handy in the cabin to supplement the generally bad food that Scuttles cooked. So he offered him the job of steward and was surprised when the man accepted.

  Soon the steamer was crowded with passengers and their mountains of chests, trunks, and bags. The small ferry chugged and puffed up to the sides of the packet. Morgan was first on the ship, climbing the fifteen feet up the rope ladder to the top of the bulwarks. He looked around him, surveying the decks of the ship on which he’d sailed so many voyages. There was an awkward moment of silence as he stepped on deck. He felt the eyes of the sailors turn in his direction.

  Two men who were lounging by the fife rail jumped up like rabbits and began swabbing the decks. Another man bending over the scuttlebutt looked up like a startled deer, his face dripping with water. Still another quickly hid his small bottle of rum in the folds of a greasy rag. Some of the sailors, particularly the newcomers, showed him deference by taking their hats off. Others glanced away with downcast eyes or glared at him with a defiant look. By the foremast, a few sat together with crossed arms. Many of these foredeck hands were new to him, but some of his old shipmates had stayed with him, including Icelander, the Spaniard, Scuttles the cook, and Whipple the carpenter. His ship’s officers, Horace Nyles and Ezra Pratt, the two old-timers from the river, met him at the gangway.

  With his gray, whiskery face and large, smoky eyes revealing nothing, Nyles welcomed Captain Morgan aboard the ship. Morgan knew that the man must resent him, as he had been passed over for shipmaster time and time again.

  “Good to have you aboard, Cap’n,” echoed the smaller, bearded Pratt with a note of insincerity in his hoarse voice. Morgan again felt awkward.

  “Muster the men, Mr. Nyles,” he ordered with a slightly uncertain voice. As the chief mate read out the names, each sailor muttered, “Here” or “Yes, sir,” and shuffled forward. Morgan sized up the two dozen men who would serve under him, taking a good look at each face. Sullen, solitary faces, weathered and unsmiling, others with friendly broad grins and whiskery beards, young and old. These were the sailors under his command, a mixture of men, several stooped-shouldered newcomers and deep-chested veterans, their leathery faces, taciturn and defiant, chewing their quids of tobacco. These hardened packet ship men could outsail any others, but Morgan well knew that they were hard to discipline.

  As the twenty passengers came on board he was introduced to them one by one as they emerged above the bulwarks. Most of them clambered up the ladder on the ship’s steep sides as he had done, but some of the ladies had to be lifted on board, their long dresses billowing up to reveal their ruffled undergarments in a moment of temporary embarrassment. They were the usual mixture of well-dressed men and women, many of whom traveled with servants. Just by their puckered expressions and the stiffness in their step, he could pick out the Englishmen. Most of them were in America
seeing to their investments in the cotton industry and the canals. A few even came over on hunting trips for moose and bear in the woods of Maine.

  A stout, red-haired man of imposing height who gave his name as George Wilberton, the third Earl of Nanvers, introduced himself as if an important event had just occurred. Dressed in a mustard-colored vest, cream-colored pants, and a green coat, he strutted on board like a proud peacock. He was traveling alone on business, he told Morgan, and was now anxious to get home to “good Old England.” There were only a few Americans: a minister, his wife, and daughter from Philadelphia and a salesman from Baltimore. One loquacious, middle-aged English woman by the name of Mrs. Elizabeth Bullfinch, who had come to America on a business trip with her much older husband, was complaining that the crates containing her delicate porcelain china plates and tea set were still on deck. The center of the ship was already cluttered with human beings, baggage, and animals.

  “Captain, what will happen to my porcelain?” Mrs. Bullfinch cried out. Morgan looked at this formidable picture of English femininity. She was a short, stocky woman with broad shoulders and ample hips. A prominent jaw jutted from her face like a ship’s bowsprit. Flustered, annoyed, and distracted by all the confusion on deck, Morgan answered in his own plainspoken way.

  “All in good time, ma’am. As soon as we hoist the cow up and the pigs, we’ll be able to get your porcelain down the hatchway.”

  “What!” she wailed, her voice turning into a more pronounced whine.

  To escape this annoying woman, Morgan retreated to the stern and stood by the helmsman. There he sought refuge until the ship was fully loaded, the hatches closed, and the cabin passengers comfortably situated down below in the saloon.

  “All hands, man the windlass!” Morgan shouted out to the first mate in the midsection of the ship.

  “Heave away there forward,” yelled Mr. Nyles to the foredeck.

  The crew began heaving at the windlass and breaking into a chorus of “Sally Brown.” Tattooed arms and calloused hands moved in unison in a blur of soggy ropes and gristly beards.

  “Sheet home, the foretop’s’l,” Morgan yelled as the breeze fanned his cheek. The bow of the ship now tugged at its anchor chain as it slowly fell off to the starboard side, anxious to be back at sea. Even before the sailors cleared the heavy, unwieldy anchor out of the water, the Hudson was already underway. Morgan could feel the ship shudder and then take off in a sudden surge as the hull heeled to port and the big sails filled out. He looked around him with a critical eye, his feet wide apart, his hands fondling his cigar. Even as first mate, he always looked for any weak links in the ship’s rigging, any signs of chafing or wear. He carefully examined all the hemp lines used to trim and shape the sails, and then moved to the shrouds and stays that supported the masts to keep them stable in heavy winds. He walked forward toward the mainmast, his eye following some of the heavy lines descending onto the deck leading to the pin rails and the fife rails.

  “Keep the sails full and drawing, Mr. Nyles.”

  “Good full, sir,” came the reply.

  Morgan continued taking stock of the ship. In the center of the boat the animals were all secured. The waist-high bulwarks had a fresh coat of green paint. The bleached decks leading up to the cargo hatches were scrubbed and cleaned. The first mate was shouting out orders as the men pulled up and released the sails, the foredeck men hauling in the sheets. He looked up as more and more sails were set and began to fill as the ship slowly spread her white wings. Like other captains, he wanted his ship to stand out in New York harbor. That wasn’t easy as the nearly ten-year-old Hudson was now one of the older and smaller of the transatlantic packets.

  The packet was soon flying toward the sloping hills of Staten Island. Morgan looked over the leeward rail with satisfaction, the water flowing by the hull, hissing and gurgling. Just ahead was the Red Star packet called the John Jay that had the reputation of being one of the slowest packets. A chorus of competing chanteys filled the air from the different ships. The banging of the yards and the clatter of the sails dropping and filling made Morgan feel glad to be alive, even though he could feel butterflies fluttering inside of him. He looked out at the hazy highlands of Navesink, where the remnants of an old fort from the last war with England could still be seen on top of a cliff. He took out his spyglass and spotted some goats gazing out to sea as if they were still on watch for any sign of a British man o’ war. Departure and landfall, he thought to himself, the two bookends of his life. Departure usually brought sadness in leaving the comforts of shore, but on this voyage Morgan walked the deck with a springy yet nervous step. Following his instructions to the mate, he turned from his above-deck duties to his new untried and unknown responsibilities below deck.

  Most of the passengers were sick those first nights out as they encountered stormy weather off Long Island and New England. Morgan was now accustomed to walking down the thirty-foot-long saloon used by all the passengers, listening to the plaintive cries from one stateroom after another. All their cabins opened out onto the saloon, in effect, a long narrow common room only fourteen feet in width with finely polished wooden sides. A mahogany table ran down the center. Passengers in their own way lamented about the misery of sea travel. Morgan could hear Champlin’s voice warning him to keep “his salty opinions to himself and be packet-polite to the cabin passengers.”

  Lowery, dressed in a checked shirt and white apron, rushed from one stateroom to the next even as the ship plunged, lurched, and climbed. The steward’s head and bushy hair were wrapped with a red bandanna, and he walked like a man comfortable at sea, his feet squarely apart, his body leaning forward. He had ginger lozenges, baked apples, and slices of lemon, all three remedies for seasickness, on a tray in one hand. Wet towels and fresh blankets were in the other. Morgan thought to himself that he had made a good choice in selecting this man.

  Above deck, he could hear the noisy cries of the men and the stampeding rush of their feet. He could hear the mate’s call to tack the ship. Down below, he watched as the long steady heel of everything switched from one side to the other. Unfastened cabin doors on the windward side flew open while they shut with a bang on the leeward side. Inside one of the cabins, he spotted a man in a contorted position on his berth with his heels over his head. They would now be clear of land and be on a course well east of the dangerous Nantucket Shoals. Sable Island and the foggy Grand Banks lay ahead.

  A hoarse voice from a stateroom cried out, “Steward, bring me the bowl again. I’m going to be sick. Hurry, steward!”

  Lowery opened the varnished, maplewood-latticed door with its white handle, and through the arched entrance Morgan couldn’t help but see one of the older Englishmen leaning over the wash stand in his eight-by-eight-foot stateroom, his body wrapped in bedsheets, his mottled red face revealing abject misery. The man’s head was almost completely bald except for a strand of gray hair that hung limply down into the washbowl like a strand of Spanish moss from the limb of a tree. His cabin was in a dreadful mess, the floor covered with vomit. It was Mr. William Bullfinch. His wife was in the upper bunk rolling in agony. When he saw the captain, he turned to smile with his fleshy jowls and tried to make the best of his frail condition.

  “I am afraid I have little self-respect remaining. Please do forgive me, Captain, as I am in the depths of despair. Sadly, my poor wife is in a similarly poor condition.”

  Without stepping inside, Morgan could see the white-faced Mrs. Bullfinch popping multiple ginger lozenges into her mouth. He gagged at the acrid smell emanating from the small cabin. He noticed with surprise that Lowery handed the man one of the ship’s fine porcelain serving bowls from the pantry. He supposed the chamber pots were all in use. He wished the man and his wife well as he continued to make his rounds. Those stormy conditions continued for the next two days. The passengers were all in a sorry state, some moaning that the ship would soon sink to the bottom. The chairs and the furniture, which were not fastened to the cabin sole, we
re rolling and sliding from one end of the saloon to the other. He tried to reassure everyone he spoke with that the gale was subsiding, but his words were not very convincing. The noxious odors that filled the saloon were even enough to make him feel ill. After spending many hours of the first two days down below engaged in polite conversations with his suffering passengers, he decided to leave the nursing and the caretaking to Lowery and Scuttles. He felt like a doctor in a busy hospital ward. He knew he was neglecting his duties above deck.

  That night in his cabin he wrote down the noon reading into the ship’s log, something he normally did during the day.

  Hudson’s position at 1300, Tuesday April 23rd.

  42 degrees 10’ latitude by 70 degrees 55’ longitude.

  Course: Northeast, some 400 miles from Sable Island.

  Falling barometer. High winds from the southwest accompanied by squalls, ten-foot seas. Under topsails, reefed spanker and inner jib. A regular gale of wind. Most passengers sick. All types of complaints heard from the staterooms. We are surging along, averaging almost ten knots since we passed the shoals off Nantucket.

  13

  By the end of the first week, Morgan was tired. He took the early morning watch for himself from four to eight, but between nursing his passengers back to health below deck and asserting his authority above deck, he spent little time in his own cabin. The lack of sleep had taken its toll. He found himself nodding off. One night he did a double watch. He was standing by the stern rail. He must have fallen asleep because he woke with a start to the sound of men yelling. He thought it was the end when a huge, dark shape emerged out of the blackness. He felt the taste of fear in his mouth as he shook himself awake, and saw a faint spark of light frantically waving back and forth from another vessel. The men from the other ship were shouting over the sound of the wind and the waves. It happened so fast he just stood there, unable to react, not certain if he was dreaming or not. The other ship flew by missing the Hudson’s stern by only twenty feet. He saw the shadowy, fear-stricken faces staring at him. He stood there paralyzed, waving his own lantern back and forth as the other ship disappeared into the void. He knew that the sailors were watching him now. They were whispering that the captain couldn’t be trusted. He could feel their accusatory eyes. He was on trial. They were judging him, whispering behind his back, and he knew it.