As the Duke of York nears the Equator the crew hopes to have a bit of fun. Crossing the Line ceremonies were common on sailing vessels and often involved ‘King Neptune’ coming on board to ‘baptise’ first timers. Crew members and passengers might be ‘shaved’ with big mock razors and all by-standers were often doused with water. But Captain Morgan has other ideas. He is offended by these ‘heathen practices’ and heroically (according to his diary) protects his passengers from such indignities. In recording these events he cannot resist a little moralizing about his own superiority!
But this skylarking pales into insignificance beside the drunkenness and cruelty on board the Lady Mary Pelham. This finally ends in tragedy with the death of the first mate James Doine Thompson of a ‘brain fever’, brought on, it is said, by ‘excessive drinking.’ In an extraordinary letter to George Fife Angas, the second mate, Alexander Dawsey, claims that Thompson and the third mate Walter Edmunds had been in a permanent ‘State of Intoxication’ from the moment they left England. He provides a particularly graphic account of Thompson’s death, in the full grip of a terrifying delirium in which he believes himself to be surrounded by malignant phantoms. Thompson leaves a widow: ‘a stranger among a strange people going to a strange land’, as Robert Morgan writes. Women took particular risks in deciding to emigrate at this time, as the fate of a widow without family support was dire. We will try to discover what happens to Mrs Thompson after the voyage.
The John Pirie meanwhile is lolling about in the tropics, the passengers vainly seeking some air on deck. Accommodation below decks is said to be ‘like a hot oven’. The crew finally manages to catch a [tooltip color=”grey” text=”A porpoise is a small marine mammal related to whales and dolphins. The word ‘porpoise’ has sometimes been used by sailors and fishermen to refer to any small dolphin.”] porpoise [/tooltip], providing all on board with a change from salt meat, which makes everyone feel better.
