The gentlemen told them in no uncertain terms that they would have it done. There could be no argument about it.
While this conversation was going on more men had come up to the deck. Some of them were pretty vocal in defying the gentlemen. They told the cook that as they had had their breakfast spoilt they were determined that they should not lose their dinners as well. The pea soup would stay.
The two sides were squaring up to each other now and the cooks were doing nothing. The gentlemen were outraged. They sent for the captain.
The captain was a no-nonsense man: he was not going to allow any disruption on his ship. He immediately set about identifying the most vocal of the settlers and labelled them ringleaders of the “mutiny.” He ordered them aft on to the quarter deck. He read them the Mutiny Act and informed them of the consequences of their actions in terms of the Act. He ordered a boat to be lowered and designated a crew to man her. He ordered six of the “ringleaders” to step into the boat. He pointed to another settler ship some distance away and said that he had instructed its captain to put them ashore on an island. He then gave the word for the boat to be lowered.
One of the wives, Sarah Allen, came forward. At great risk to the baby she was holding she dropped on to the deck at her master, George Dyason’s, feet. She begged him to intervene. She said that she didn’t know what she would do if her husband were put ashore on an island. What would become of her and her child?
Dyason didn’t look at her. Stoney faced, he said: “I can do nothing in this as the captain is determined to punish them.”
She then turned to the captain but he wouldn’t be moved.
So off the boat went and the settlers watched until it disappeared from view.
That particular incident had a happy ending, however. Soon after, one night when there was a full moon, a sailor called from the crow’s nest indicating that there was a small boat approaching. The word went round and the settlers left their beds and crowded against the rail to see. For some reason – and Goldswain does not explain why – the six mutineers were coming back. They approached amid loud cheering. Mrs Allen was particularly joyful when she was able to make out the figure of her husband. She hugged baby John and told him that his father was coming home.
Everyone remained silent as the mutineers related what had happened to them. They had been received aboard the other ship as honoured guests and its settlers had shared their rations with them. When they heard about their guests’ ‘crime’, they expressed their surprise and, to a man and woman, declared that they sympathised with their plight. The mutineers spent four happy days with them. Sam Allen had participated in the holiday atmosphere that prevailed but maintained a slight distance. As he’d said repeatedly: ‘I only wish that I had my wife with me and then I should be happy too.’
As well as the hazards of rough seas, disease and food poisoning, there were the further dangers of shipwreck and fire. Perhaps the settlers’ worst fear was that at any moment disaster could strike in one of those forms. It was up to the captain and crew to prevent shipwreck to the best of their ability, but as regards fire, every passenger bore the responsibility for preventing it. On a wooden ship lighted candles and open cooking fires posed a constant hazard. The ships’ list of instructions included a time for lights to be put out and the captains dealt harshly with anyone found breaking that rule.
But even so, there were people who placed everyone around them in jeopardy by breaking even the most sensible of rules. Tom Stubbs spotted one of the women sewing at night-time: ‘When one night the word to douse the glim was given … [she placed] the candle on deck and cover[ed] it with her clothes, standing over it until all was quiet then [began] her sewing again.’
There were countless incidents of fires breaking out on board. They were usually dealt with by a crew member trained to act swiftly and decisively, but there was one settler ship where the crew was unable to do anything.
The Abeona caught fire and sank near the equator on 25 November 1820. A late departure, she had sailed from Greenock, carrying the Glaswegian party led by William Russell. Only forty-nine of the 160 crew and settlers survived. Mr Duff, the first mate, had gone into the storeroom to look for something and, disregarding the safety rules, had removed a candle from its lantern to help him search more effectively. The most feared consequence occurred.
Just after noon, the alarm was given that the ship was on fire: smoke and flames were coming from its stores and provisions. The sailors were quick to pass buckets of water to the first mate and the mariners who were down there, but their efforts were in vain.
In the meantime, the passengers had been driven up from below by the dense smoke and rapidly spreading fire. In ten or fifteen minutes from the first alarm the case was hopeless, and the ship was ablaze from the mainmast on the lower deck. The passengers crowded onto the upper deck and, judging by the excessive heat, they were expecting the fire to penetrate it at any moment. The flames rushed up from the hold, spread to the main rigging and flew up the masthead like lightning.
The scenes that followed were recorded by eyewitnesses. The Philanthropic Gazette of 24 January 1821 published a letter written by a surviving crew member: ‘The panic and confusion were such that the longboat proved too heavy to be launched by the few who were sufficiently collected to attend to the orders given, and on the falling of the main arm yard she was stove. Seeing now all was over, and the people were throwing themselves overboard, and into the boats, I also jumped over, and happily was picked up by the gig. Our anxiety was now to save as many lives as our three small boats could possibly swim with, and I rejoice to say that forty-nine were miraculously preserved.
‘A few minutes after I quitted the wreck the main and mizzen masts fell. The flame, rapidly advancing forward, drove numbers of the poor wretches on the bowsprit, where it was our hard lot to behold them frantic, without being able to render them the least assistance. You will judge how the boats were crammed, when husbands, who had wives and children still clinging to the wreck, exclaimed against more being received!’
A widow with four children picked up her youngest daughter, about two years of age, and jumped overboard with her. She left two of her children on deck but her eldest daughter, who was about ten, leapt from a different part of the vessel. There was only one boat within reach of them and the question arose among the sailors as to who was to be saved. They made the decision to save the mother and infant, and the other child drowned before they could get to her.
These passengers would have made good frontier settlers: mothers and fathers, regardless of their own lives, gathered their young children and threw them into the boats so they could be rescued. One family, the Barries, who had left Glasgow with their ten children, with great hope for a future in a land of opportunity, were confronted with the dilemma of who should survive. The father and mother, with the help of their two elder sons, flung the other children into the arms of the sailors on one of the boats just in time, before they were themselves devoured by the flames. One of the saved children was just fifteen months old.
A young couple, the MacFarlanes, who had been married only a few days before embarking, jumped overboard. The wife could not swim, so MacFarlane took her on to his back and tried to swim out to one of the boats. When his strength failed him, they clasped each other and drowned together.
The author of the letter published in The Philanthropic Gazette also reported an incident regarding a family where only the father could swim: ‘A Mrs. McLaren, with her husband and four children, upon the flames advancing, retreated into the fore channels, when recollecting that her husband was a good swimmer, she implored him to save his own life, and leave her and their children to the fate that awaited them, as he could not avert it – and her wishes were attended to.’
By contrast, Duff, whose carelessness had been the cause of the fire in the first place, was urged by his fellow officers to save himself. But he refused to get into a boat. Perhaps with his experience as a mariner in mind, he said: ‘No, I pity the people in the boats, for with us all will soon be over, but they will