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LETTER II.
SPITHEAD, Jan. 12, 1791.
My dear Friend,1
Contrary winds prevented us from proceding [sic] directly out of the channel, and made it necessary to put into
this place. We have been here two days, but I am told there is an appearance of the wind changing and that it is probable
we shall make the attempt to get away some time this day; therefore I think it best not to defer performing my promise of
writing to you, least [sic] we sail and I am disappointed.
We embarked at Gravesend between eleven and twelve o'clock the night after I wrote you. Every thing seemed in dreadful
confusion; but this I understand is commonly the case on board ships when on the eve of sailing. Besides, the captain had
several friends who came from London to bid him farewell.
You may guess my mind, in spite of all the resolution a young girl [Anna Maria’s first reference
to her age; she is 21] is capable of mustering, could not be undisturbed; but I would not give way to any melancholy
reflections and endeavoured to smother them as often as they intruded; although I must confess they sometimes caught me off
my guard, and my heart for the moment was ready to burst with the thoughts of what I had to encounter, which was pictured
to me by almost everyone in the worst of colours.
However, I went to bed, and being much fatigued, was in hopes every care would be buried for the night in delightful sleep;
but in this I was disappointed, for although my eyes were closed as soon as I got my head on the pillow, yet it was not of
long continuance. I had slept perhaps two hours when the shocking cries of murder awoke me! I did not at the instant recollect
where I was, but the first thoughts which occurred upon remembering myself on ship-board were that a gang of pirates had attacked
the ship and would put us all to death.
How Anna Maria must have smiled as she composed this fantasy. She knows that the reader expects drama and suspense in a
travel book.
All the cabin was by this time alarmed, the cries of murder still continuing while the captain and others were loudly calling
for lights; and so great was the confusion that it was a long while before any could be procured. At length the light came,
when I found myself somewhat collected and had courage enough to ask what was the matter.
My fears were removed by being informed it was a Mr. B—--, a passenger whose intellects were a little deranged. He
continued his disagreeable hideous cries the whole night and prevented everyone from sleeping. For my part I scarcely closed
my eyes again.
At breakfast Mr. B----- apologized by telling us that his wife had murdered his only child, for which reason he had left
her. "And," said he, "the horrid act! has made such an impression on my mind that I frequently think I see her all besmeared
with blood with a dagger in her hand, determined to take away my life also. It preys upon my spirits, for I want strength
of mind to conquer the weakness." (I am inclined to think this was only the imagination of a frantic brain for we were not
able to learn any thing more of the story.)
Mr. Alexander Anderson [ who owns the Duke of Bucleugh] came
on board and dined. He politely enquired if I was comfortable; assured me that every thing had been put on board to render
us as much so as possible. In the evening he returned to town, and we got under weigh.
Nothing occurred on our passage here except such frequent returns of Mr. B's delirium as has induced Captain McLean to
put him on shore, from the opinion of his being an unfit subject to go to the coast of Africa.
I did not experience any of those fears peculiar to my sex upon the water; and the only inconvenience I found was a little
sea sickness, which I had a right to expect, for you know this is my first voyage.
There is one circumstance which I forbode [sic] will make the remainder of our voyage unpleasant. The gentlemen
whom Mr. Falconbridge is employed by are for abolishing the slave trade. The owners of this vessel are of that trade, and
consequently the captain and Mr. Falconbridge must be very opposite in their sentiments.
They are always arguing and both are warm in their tempers, which makes me uneasy, and induces me to form this conjecture;
but perhaps that may not be the case.
What care Anna Maria takes in choosing the words to record this observation—the first hint she gives of her
husband’s character. Mr. Falconbridge is warm in his temper. Any overt criticism will be very discretely phrased.
Nor will she write down anything about their life together before January 5th. After all, this is a travel book.
She knows that what Alexander Falconbridge observed on slave ships turned his stomach, for in 1788 he wrote a searing indictment
of the slave trade. 2 He actually sought out Granville Sharp and other abolitionists
in London in his determination to fight what he sees as a nefarious practice. The Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor
printed 3,000 copies of his account to circulate as propaganda.3 And now, because
Falconbridge is an ardent abolitionist, they have hired him to make another voyage to West Africa. Anna Maria fears that their
sailing on a slave ship may lead to dissension, but no other suitable ship was available. The Lapwing is making the
voyage, carrying supplies, but she is a small cutter with a single cabin for the captain. The crew sleeps on deck under the
stars or in the rain—hardly suitable for the St. George’s Bay Company’s emissary to the African King Naimbana.
I have not been on shore at Portsmouth; indeed it is not a desirable place to visit. I was once there, and few people have
a desire to see it a second time. The only thing that has attracted my notice in the harbour is the fleet with convicts for
Botany Bay, which are wind bound as well as ourselves.
Imagine Anna Maria and Alexander standing by the rail of the Duke of Bucleugh, observing the other ships loading
nearby. She strives to be an interesting companion. She submits silently to his probing and thrusting in the dark, cramped
bunk of their cabin and knows when he is sated, but she is still too shy to call him by his first name, even in the privacy
of their cabin. And how little she understands his strident convictions. She offers her own observations in the hope that
he will reveal himself as well. "Men in chains are being escorted onto that ship. The first mate says that they are convicts
from England’s overcrowded jails."
"Yes, they are bound for Australia."
"What a long way to send them."
"Better than Sierra Leone," he snorts. "That was to be the destination until the Committee for the Relief of the Black
Poor lobbied against offloading them there. We’ll have enough problems implanting a free black settlement in the middle
of the slave trade without having to deal with murderers and rapists as well."
She studies her husband’s stern profile and glimpses a future of more somber hue than the rosy visions painted by
the abolitionists in London who have dispatched them on this mission. She tries to imagine how hardened convicts will behave
in an unknown and barbarous land on the other side of the globe. She shakes her head in dismay.
The destiny of such numbers of my fellow creatures has made what I expect to encounter set lighter upon my mind than it
ever did before. Nay, nothing could have operated a reconciliation so effectually. For as the human heart is more susceptible
of distress conveyed by the eye than when represented by language, however ingenuously pictured with misery, so the sight
of those unfortunate beings and the thoughts of what they are to endure have worked more forcibly on my feelings than all
the accounts I ever read or heard of wretchedness before.
I must close this which is the last, in all probability, you will receive from me 'till my arrival in Africa; when, if
an opportunity offers, I shall make a point of writing to you. Pray do not let distance or absence blot out the recollection
of her, who is truly yours.
Endnotes:
1. Anna Maria never discloses who "her dear Friend" is or whether such a person actually exists.
2. Published in Christopher Fyfe, Anna Maria Falconbridge,
pp. 196-230.
3. Fyfe, Anna Maria Falconbridge,
p. 2.
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