Peter Kirkham informs Web Site readers of ...

'PRINCE RUPERT'

When the wooden sailing vessel Prince Rupert V was launched in 1827, for the owners (Hudson Bay Company, of North American fame), it was intended to perpetuate the name for the ships operated on the Canadian/European voyages since 1669, and no one could possibly imagine the circumstances of this vessel's ultimate sad ending in Table Bay. The 322 ton barque was built by the Thames-side shipbuilding firm known as Blackwall Yard (Messrs Wigram and Green). She was classified as a frigate, but barque-rigged proper, square on fore and aft on the mizzen. For the next 13 years the ship carried out its trading between Britain and Canada, before being sold and replaced by Prince Rupert VI. She was bought by a shipbroker (Sir Richard Atkinson RN) who was intent on exploiting the lucrative run to New Zealand, which was drawing the emigrant British. She was refurbished while laying in the Thames, her hull was sheathed in yellow metal, and her grading given as A1 by Lloyds.

While we are all intent on researching our ancestral links, this bit of "reading" is intended to encourage us to reflect on the hardships our settler forebears endured in the process of their emigration. Much has been written about the Prince Rupert, and this particular tale was written by Alfred Cole who, although intent on emigrating to New Zealand, was forced to remain at the Cape after Prince Rupert was wrecked, and spent five years there before returning to England. He wrote "The Cape and The Kaffirs, or Five Years Residence in the Cape", and this is an excerpt. Read on:

"Most men leaving their native land for a foreign country, especially one that would be their abiding place for a year, form some sort of previous ideas of the soil, climate, people, and the pursuits of the regions they are about to visit. But I had not even the remotest idea of visiting that quarter of the globe at all. My destination, in my idea, was New Zealand. But fate decreed, that instead of going to the Antipodes, I should be carried instead to the land of the Hottentots, and there be planted for the space of 5 years. But I offered prayers of gratitude to God. Had I reached New Zealand I might have formed a side dish at some select banquet of cannibal Maoris instead of spending five happy years in the Cape Colony. In the latter half of March 1841, I sailed from Gravesend on an emigrant ship the "Prince Rupert" bound for New Zealand.

Never shall I forget my sensation on embarking. I had visited the ship in London docks to inspect it. Neat and trim and on show. Engaged a passage with comfortable reflection on having secured a good berth in an excellent ship. The "bunk" as the sailors call it was a queer little shelf in which I was to lie every night of my life for some six months - rather larger than a coffin, but not half as handsome. The cabin too, was more snug than spacious. The cuddy where forty people were to take breakfast, tea, and dinner together appeared to be about the size of a saloon carriage on the Brighton railway. But all my doubts as to the capabilities of all these different departments were met with strong assurances from the captain, that there was "plenty of room", and that "things looked different at sea", all accompanied by smiles at my landsman's ignorance.

I made up my mind that it was alright, and that I was a lucky fellow to find such an admirable ship to travel in. But what a contrast when I stepped on board again in Gravesend, with one hundred and twenty emigrants and cabin passengers on board. One hundred and twenty mortal's personal baggage strewn on the decks, beside water casks, hen coops, sheep pens, boat rigging, babies, dogs and pigs! The sights and sounds and the conglomeration of odours, each intensely vile in itself, made me shudder; I felt half inclined to rush back on land, forfeit my passage money, and forswear all inclination to "roam the wide world o'er." Perhaps I was more keenly alive to all these discomforts, and annoyances, because my mind was not distracted from them by other distractions. I had no weeping relatives around me, nor had I left any behind. No fair one who held my heart captive in England, while I was fleeing away. The truth is I was leaving England because I felt that I was in a country that was overstocked, and where I, a young man without fortune and friend, stood very little chance of fighting the battle of life with any glorious result to myself. Next day things and people began to fall a little more into their proper places. We were expecting to set sail every minute, but there was something wrong, and the Custom House authorities detained us. At last we were cleared, and weighed anchor. A jolly, red faced old pilot, who drank about sixteen tumblers of grog a day, and ate three hearty meals a day (not to mention an occasional biscuit and sandwich), took charge of the ship at Portsmouth. He soon discovered that she was "cranky", or top heavy from bad stowing. We were detained for a week to ten days while the ship was re-stowed in Portsmouth. Another pilot took charge, and we battled our way down to Plymouth. The wind was dead in our teeth. From Plymouth, we sailed after an interval of three to four days. We caught our last view of England's shores in the beginning of May.

"Did one ever see a man who crossed the Bay of Biscay in fine weather? For my part I firmly believe that the sun never shines there, the wind never ceases to blow a hurricane. Imagine about one hundred people being seasick for a week. Rather you cannot fancy anything half so awful. There was a gradual recovering. The creeping out of your berth, being pitched against the side of your cabin with the force of a rocket ball. The dull half giddy, heavy half drowsy sensation of your brain, the weakness, the faintness of your body. The extreme hunger, yet the daintiness of your appetite. The disgusting smell of the close cabin, with a mixture of tar. The fruitless attempts to get comfortable, and at last staggering up the companion ladder, and onto the deck.

And what a scene meets you there. A sea and sky of dirty brown - the former rolling and tumbling about like a giant with a nightmare, and a small vessel on which you stand, that seems to your uninitiated eye to be doomed to inevitable destruction. The captain tells you "We have had a fairly stiff breeze, but it is over now, and we are getting fine weather again". And just as he says it a big wave makes you jump at the quarter deck, nearly knocks you overboard, and drenches you from head to foot. You don't like that kind of fine weather so you retire to the cuddy, and try to determine your success at the dinner which the steward, and his mates, who all seem to have been brought up as tightrope walkers, are bringing in. You take your seat, every now and again, hug your neighbour most affectionately to prevent your joint upset. You think you will "try a little soup" and just at that moment the ship gives an obliging lurch, and obligingly deposits the whole tureen in your lap. You take some boiled chicken, as you seize the parsley and butter, you pour it into your neighbour's wine glass, instead of your own plate. You ask for some pale ale. The steward's youngest helps you to it, pouring half of it into your glass, and the other half down your back. You see a swinging tray of glasses hanging just before you, just before the ship rolls you try to save them, and by pulling them out of their equilibrium, the whole lot come down on the table with a terrific crash. And all this while the Captain, and his mate, are making terrific inroads on all the provisions, discussing the weather hobnobbing over their wine, and looking quite unconcerned. As if an angle of forty five degrees was the natural position of a gentleman's dining table. You hate them both intensely. Fine weather came at last, and I had an opportunity to observe some of my fellow passengers. What a curious crew they were.

1. Government officials going out to New Zealand. They had a remarkable sense of their own importance, and all their gold braid and buttons looked more impressive than the ship's officers.

2. Gentlemen farmers, innocent of the slightest acquaintance with ploughing and sowing, and with confused notions of the difference between barley and oats.

3. Self-styled "merchants", gentlemen intending to "do" the Maoris, provided they did not eat them with the knives and forks of their own importing, washing them down with their own champagne.

4. Young gentlemen with nothing but an outfit from Silvers, a fifty pound note, a good education, and a paternal blessing.

5. Steerage. Seventy or eighty emigrants of every description, with no common point of resemblance, save that of prolifickness. Huge families of children, which I understood is high recommendation with the emigration committees in general. Ploughmen from Somersetshire, Mechanics from Lancashire, Shepherds from Scotland, bogtrotters from Ireland, and a few ruined tradesmen from everywhere. At first they stared at each other as if of another race. In a week they had amalgamated into the most comically fraternal style. They split into parties religious, or jolly (largest). The former sang hymns out of tune, the latter sang ditties. They were mainly left to their own devices. The captain had too much to do to bother with looking after their meals, and morals, both often outrageously bad. I have omitted the children, but I will never forget them. The most notorious were sent to plague a bachelor's nerves. They ate a good deal, had voracious appetites, and almost brought us to a state of starvation"

Note: The story continues in much the same vein, covering Prince Rupert's lengthy and trying voyage to the Cape, via Bahia.

Food shortages, becalmed in the doldrums, sick captain having to be repatriated from Bahia, fractious children, squabbles, mutinies, and much more. Until the night of 4 September 1841 when she struck a reef off Green Point (the same rocks that spelt the end of the George M. Livanos in 1947 and the Seafarer in 1966) and subsequently broke up completely. The paying passengers were offered alternative travel arrangements to reach their destinations, but most of the steerage folk (the ploughmen, mechanics, shepherds, bogtrotters and ruined tradesmen) lost everything and were destitute, and became unintentional immigrants to this country. Several found their way to the Eastern Cape and made solid contributions to Frontier society.