Rough Passage to London: A Sea Captain's Tale (37 page)

“Shortly after we had killed the snake, Enitan continued recalling and recounting that fateful voyage so many years ago, how he had refused the captain’s orders to drown some two hundred of the blind slaves. He was beaten and locked in a cell. A terrible storm came up and then one night he heard the wrenching noise of the ship slamming into a reef, the wooden hull splintering, water pouring in. He was freed by about a dozen of the slaves, who somehow had worked themselves free of their manacles. They all grabbed onto some of the spare yards and spars stored in the cargo holds and on deck and threw themselves into the sea. The next thing he remembered was the burning hot sun, the scalding sand, and a black woman’s face looking down at him. He was on a small spit of land in the midst of reefs. He could barely see; his eyes were crusting over as the disease was progressing. In the distance, he could make out the blue mountains of what turned out to be Jamaica. They greeted him as a friend because they had seen him defy the captain and the mate. He helped the others build a raft and paddles from the remains of the ship, which had drifted ashore. They even found some canvas remnants of the sails, and they set out for the nearby mountainous island. With the prevailing trade winds now blowing behind them, they landed the next day on the southeastern coast of the island and started climbing.”

“Did you ask him what his Christian name was?” Morgan asked again.

“I did, Captain, but unfortunately he wasn’t certain, but he did tell me something, and that is why Mrs. Leslie thought I should come and see you. He said he thinks his name was Morgan, or something like that, and he sometimes dreams of a place by a big river called Lyme. When I mentioned this story to the ladies’ group, and told them I was carrying a letter addressed to his family, Mrs. Leslie said I should contact you. You would know what to do.”

It was hard to describe his sensations. Morgan’s head was reeling. He had no sense of time or place.

“Here is the letter. See for yourself. It is addressed simply to ‘A shipwrecked sailor’s family, Lyme.’ That is my handwriting. I helped him write it. I did not know how else to advise him.”

Morgan picked up the letter, gingerly holding it as if it were the most valuable piece of jewelry in the world. He opened it slowly and began reading.

To Whomever May Read This Letter:

I am a shipwrecked sailor. I believe my last name is Morgan, or some name similar to that. My home was once on the banks alongside a wide river in a place called Lyme. I have given this letter to a good man who knows my story and how I came to be shipwrecked on an offshore reef near Jamaica in the summer of 1816. Sadly, I have lived all these years with a failed memory. I am blind, but I have learned to see in other ways. The sounds of the forest paint pictures for me. The birds speak to me with their songs, sometimes warning me, other times guiding me. I am told by the missionaries who come here that God will visit the earth in judgment of the many sins of the slave traders who brought me here against my will. I know the man of the cloth who is carrying this letter will explain that to you. If this should fall into the hands of my family, I want them to know I am safe here. My wife, Adeola, and I are blessed with four children. Beyond the painful memories of my voyage, I have no recollection of my early years.

My dear family, should you read this letter, and you recognize who I am, may the kind Providence bring us together again in this life.

Enitan

Morgan stood there for what seemed like an eternity rereading the letter over and over again after the Baptist minister had left. He was too emotional to even speak so he just nodded to himself, gulped, and bit his lip. Tears streamed down his face and he tried to wipe them away. His mind was lost as he tried to imagine this world of shadows the letter described, the sounds of the forest, the singing birds. Finally he heard his name being called out, and he surfaced on deck to the chorus of competing orders from the mates readying the ship. The dockmaster was loading last-minute cargo into the ship’s hold. He scanned the hardworking faces of the emigrants on deck, their belongings all around them, infants crying and children screaming.

Morgan’s mind was far away as he watched his well-dressed friends walk up the wooden gangway onto the quarterdeck. Landseer’s silver-gray, bushy head bobbed up and down in the mix of people. Behind them came the large and rotund Clarkson Stanfield and the tall and slim Charles Leslie, followed by his lovely daughter, Harriet, who was now twenty-one years old and catching the attention of many roving eyes, including those of Mr. Dickens and Mr. Thackeray. He was sad to hear Leslie say that the old club might soon fade away. There were fewer members of the Sketching Club, and now many of the older members, including Leslie, often didn’t attend. Old Turner was too ill now to even go to the Royal Academy. They were all getting older, and many of them were painting less.

He spotted Dickens, who was wearing a new top hat and had a jaunty look on his thin, angular face. His illustrator friends followed close behind, their expressions filled with amazement at the chaos on board the ship. The giant figure of Thackeray with his distinctive glasses also followed this group up the gangway.

“That’ll do, Mr. Moore, with your ’ead line,” yelled the garrulous dockmaster. “If you’ll be good enough to ’aul yer stern line to port and ’ave those sailors tail on to that quarter line, we’ll ’ave you cleared and ready for departure.”

Minutes later, the
Southampton
gently moved out of the enclosed St. Katherine’s Docks where two steamers were waiting. Morgan ordered some of the men high up in the yards to release the fore topsail with the large Black X on it, more for looks than anything else, as there was little wind. His guests were milling about the quarterdeck around Dickens and Thackeray, who were the center of the large group’s attention.

The banks of the Thames were cloaked with mist and coal smoke, a gloomy, gray riverscape that Morgan thought had an odd beauty about it, much like one of Turner’s paintings. From the forecastle, he could hear the men singing. A Creole bones player, Ben Sheets, clicked out a rhythm. He recognized the sound of Ochoa strumming and thumping on his guitar. A wailing fiddle and a pulsating accordion quickly joined in. He could hear Icelander and Whipple belt out a familiar chorus, their voices soaring and swooping like birds in flight.

“At St. Katherine’s Dock I bade adieu

To Poll and Bet and lovely Sue,

The anchor’s weighed, the sails unfurled

We’re bound to plough the watery world

Don’t you see we’re homeward bound?”

He walked over to the group surrounding Dickens and Thackeray, who now had serious looks on their faces.

“No one seems to have seen him for days,” Landseer said.

“Where could he have gone?” asked Dickens.

Richard Doyle from
Punch
then chimed in. “I have heard that the Admiralty is trying to question him, apparently something to do with the wreck of the
Hydra
off the coast of France. They found some suspicious papers on board that ship.”

“You don’t think Nanvers is in any trouble do you?” asked Leslie incredulously. “I was just there at his house two weeks ago. Captain Morgan was with me. What did he tell you when he met with you privately?”

Morgan pulled at one of his earlobes before answering as he thought about what he should say.

“Lord Nanvers had some business matters to discuss. He seemed to have some financial concerns and wondered if I could help him captain one of his ships. I thanked him, of course, but told him I had no interest in leaving the Black X Line. Why, what has happened to Nanvers?”

“He seems to have disappeared,” replied Dickens, his eyebrows arching upward. “He hasn’t been seen for days, and he left no word with his staff at the estate about any travel plans. I am sure he will show up in good time. It is not like Nanvers to miss one of your river cruises, Captain.”

“It is strange though,” remarked Leslie with a puzzled shake of his head. “Maybe he has been called away to one of his landholdings in Jamaica,” he said in a hopeful tone.

Lowery was making his rounds with glass decanters of sherry and claret. Sam Junkett followed behind with glasses of Leslie’s favorite punch, an old recipe from Philadelphia called Fish House Punch, a powerful concoction of peach brandy, cognac, and dark rum. As he sipped appreciably on his punch, Dickens turned to Morgan with a mischievous sparkle in his eye.

“Is it fair to say, Captain, that I have once again stepped onto American soil?”

Morgan paused a moment and laughed.

“Yes sir, Mr. Dickens. I suppose you have.”

“Does that make me subject to the laws of your United States?”

Packet-polite as always, Morgan responded diplomatically.

“I am not a legal scholar, Mr. Dickens, but I would say as master of this American flagged vessel you can consider yourself free to express your opinion, whatever that may be.”

The two men laughed. They had become fast friends over the past few years. Morgan pulled out a cigar and offered one to Dickens. The English author beamed as he rolled the cigar in his wide mouth. Soon the pungent smell of Havanas enveloped the quarterdeck, the wispy clouds of smoke drifting out over the Thames.

Dickens didn’t say anything at first as he puffed appreciably on his cigar, but then turned to the captain.

“Captain Morgan, this is a good cigar indeed. On a more serious note, a good cigar requires a good yarn. You know I have always enjoyed your stories. I hope you don’t mind that I have repeated them on several occasions, sometimes to great effect. The one about the ‘wet lovers and the dry one’ is a personal favorite. Have you another for me?”

“How much time do you have, Mr. Dickens?” Morgan asked. “The tale I am thinking of is a long one.”

“Indeed, Captain Morgan.” Dickens took another pleasurable puff on his cigar. His expressive eyebrows inched upward. “Does the story have a happy ending?”

“I believe so,” Morgan replied as he felt the smooth surface of the lead pennywhistle in his coat pocket. A broad smile broke across his face like the sun emerging from behind a dark cloud. “Yes, I believe it does.”

“What is it about?”

“The search for a sailor feared to be lost at sea.”

“How does it begin?”

“It begins with a letter from another sailor.”

“A message from the sea,” mused Dickens. “I like the sound of that.”

Epilogue

Captain E. E. Morgan retired as an active packet ship captain in 1851 to take over the running of the Black X Line. He had been at sea for nearly thirty years. He died at his New York residence on April 19, 1864, at the age of fifty-eight. As manager of the Black X Line and a member of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, he was considered to be one of the state’s most prominent merchants. In his obituary, the
New York Tribune
wrote, “he was a bluff, honest sailor, a strictly upright merchant, and a thorough Union man.” The
New York World
praised him for his work to promote the welfare of sailors and his service to the city as a pilot and a harbor commissioner. He died a year before the end of the Civil War, but he never doubted that the North would prevail. He expressed that opinion to a skeptical Charles Dickens and some of his other English friends. Months before he died, Morgan signed a proclamation with other leading figures in New York urging that Abraham Lincoln be reelected. Ever the optimist, during the height of the Civil War, he had the Westervelt shipyard in New York build what would be one of the last of the big sailing packets. She was called the
Hudson II
, and she was 205 feet in length, almost twice the size of the original
Hudson
. The Black X Line, or the Morgan Line as it came to be known, ceased its regularly scheduled passages across the Atlantic in 1868. The last sailing packet ship to cross the Atlantic was the three-decker
Ne Plus Ultra
of Grinnell & Minturn’s Red Swallowtail Line. She arrived in New York on May 18, 1881.

Acknowledgments

I have many people to thank for helping me with this book. First and foremost, I should mention my grandmother, Elizabeth Babcock. By passing on the portrait of Elisha Ely Morgan to me in her will, she inadvertently may have set me on this journey years ago. I would like to thank my distant cousin, Gerald Morgan Jr., who kindly allowed me to read an old family scrapbook filled with letters to Elisha Ely Morgan from some of his English friends as well as his own research on the Morgan family. It is a great sadness that he did not live to see the book, but he did enjoy hearing and reading about some of my research. Thanks as well to Annette and Philip Rulon for permission to use the Thomas Dutton colored lithograph of the
Victoria
on the cover.

I want to give my deepest thanks to my wife, Tamara, for her ongoing perseverance. She was a stalwart support in this book from the beginning, patiently reading all the early versions of the manuscript and giving me much appreciated and valuable feedback. Her encouragement and constructive suggestions over these past few years helped to keep me going. Special thanks are due to my editor, Alexandra Shelley. I couldn’t have done this book without her professional oversight, guidance, suggestions, and detailed criticism. She encouraged me to take risks and push myself as a writer into new uncharted territories.

I am tremendously grateful to maritime historian Renny Stackpole for sharing some of his detailed expertise on the rigging and layout of tall ships, and for kindly reading an early version of the story. Another maritime historian to whom I owe considerable gratitude is Tom Wareham. His knowledge of the Thames, the docklands of London, and the merchant and naval ships of the time period is truly extraordinary. I would like to express gratitude to the appropriate staff at Mystic Seaport Museum and the Connecticut River Museum in Essex. In particular, I want to thank Brenda Milkofsky, the museum’s former senior curator. Her detailed knowledge about the history of Essex and Lyme is truly impressive.

Special thanks are due as well to Polly Saltonstall, longtime trustee of Maine’s Penobscot Marine Museum, and John K. Hanson Jr., publisher of the boating magazine
Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors
. They both were so kind to read the manuscript at an unfinished stage in its evolution and offer important suggestions. I also want to thank my daughter, Marisa Lloyd, for reading an early version of the manuscript with a meticulous, constructive eye for detail. Thanks to other researchers and specialists: John Weedy helped me with newspaper research in London on the
Victoria
; James Ward, a genealogist, found details about the Robinson family in New York and Virginia; Ruby Bell-Gam, the African studies librarian at UCLA, helped me with my usage of the Igbo language. Charles Weldon of the Saybrook Historical Society helped me with research on Morgan family genealogy, as did my aunt, Betsy Moulton, and Rev. Edward Morgan III, a distant cousin. Thanks also to the town of Essex’s much-respected historian Don Malcarne, who sadly passed away while I was still researching this book. He helped me with the early history of the Black X Line. Stacey Warner of Warner Graphics was a tireless ally on the printing front. Finally, I would also like to thank Hillel Black, Nira Hyman, and Dana Lee, who tightened up all the loose editorial strings at the end of this long journey, and Donald Street, who read a final version of the manuscript with a nautical eye.