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LETTER XIII.
Swan with Two Necks, Lad-lane,
LONDON, 11th October, 1793.
My Dear Madam,
I hasten to acquaint you that after a passage of nine weeks and four days in the Alexander ([captained by] Shaw)
from Jamaica, we landed safe at Dover the 9th instant. My heart jump'd with joy when I found myself once more treading the
sod of Old England, which at one time during our voyage I did not expect would ever be the case, for an ill-natured contagious
fever (when we had been but a few days at sea) discovered itself in the ship, and before it could be checked, scourged almost
every person on board; however, by the skill and vigilance of the ship's surgeon only one death happened. We had been out
about three weeks when it attacked me, and was it not for the good nursing and attention I had from every one, particularly
the Captain, Surgeon, and my own good man, in all human likelihood I should have fallen a victim to its barbarity. Indeed,
Captain Shaw's impartial kindness to his sick was beyond every thing I ever witnessed before, and in my opinion stamps him
a man of genuine humanity.
Our ship was armed with two and twenty guns and had between fifty and sixty men on board. We sailed from Kingston the 3d
of August and the following day fell in with thirteen sail of Spanish ships under convoy of a frigate, who was so very negligent
of her charge as to permit us to intercept seven of them, which had they been French we must have taken in spite of all she
could have done, being at that time so far to leeward as to be scarcely discernable. A Liverpool ship bound home had joined
them the preceding day and now begged to be taken under our protection. This was granted, and she kept company with us until
we got into the chops of the Channel.
The fever that infested us broke out among her crew and hurried a fourth of their number into the other world. Here Captain
Shaw displayed his humanity again in a high degree by waiting several hours every day and thus prolonging our voyage to the
prejudice of his own interest merely for the purpose of rendering them what assistance he could. Had he not, their situation
would certainly have been extremely comfortless as the calamity I have just mentioned was aggravated by the ship being so
leaky that the master and crew had it frequently in contemplation to abandon her.1
We had little bad or boisterous weather during our voyage, and the time pleasantly vanished after health was restored in
the ship. Scarcely two days passed away without meeting one or more vessels; we always brought them too, and although none
of them were of the sort wished for, they amused and furnished us with news of some kind. Clearing ship when a strange sail
was seen as if we really expected a rencounter, and exercising our guns once or twice a week, with all the manoeuvres practised
in an engagement, were sources of amusement altogether new to me. At first when a broad side was fired, it operated like an
electrical shock, but habit soon made it familiar, and at last I was less sensible of vibration from it than the awful tremendous
thunder we oftentimes had off the coast of America, which was more severe by far than any I ever heard on the coast of Africa.
This being the substance of every thing worth notice on our way home, I shall therefore turn back to my quitting Sierra Leone
and say something of what occurred from that time till my departure from Jamaica.
Anna Maria has written the foregoing with regard to Captain Shaw’s ship, Alexander, which had delivered its
cargo of slaves in Jamaica before the DuBoises boarded it. Then she describes the earlier passage from Freetown to Jamaica
in her brother-in-law’s ship, the Nassau. She never explains why the switch to the Alexander in Jamaica
was necessary. Perhaps her brother-in-law, Captain Morley, was not returning immediately to England.
The passage from Freetown to Jamaica contains a lengthy commentary on the slave trade, as well as descriptions of that
Caribbean island, and has been eliminated in order not to interrupt the flow of Anna Maria’s narrative.
I believe I have now noticed every circumstance meriting attention from the time of leaving Sierra Leone until our arrival
here; and having spun this letter out to a greater length than was either expected or intended, I must therefore hurry it
to a conclusion and shall only observe that I understand the Amy is arrived with the two black Deputies from Sierra
Leone, but I am not informed what kind of reception they have met with from the Directors, none of whom I've yet had the pleasure
of seeing.
Mr.----- [DuBois] has some business with them which he is in hopes of accomplishing shortly; we then intend paying a visit
to you and the rest of my friends in Bristol.
Adieu. Believe me always Your's sincerely.
* * *
When Isaac and Anna Maria DuBois arrive in England, Isaac Anderson and Cato Perkins are still there, waiting for some reply
from the directors to their petition. They get in touch with the DuBoises, who are staying at the Swan with Two Necks. Isaac
is entirely in sympathy with their cause and immediately sits down to help them word their petition more strongly. Anna Maria
would have been wary. "Your assistance will anger the directors of the Sierra Leone Company," she cautions him.
"I can’t in good conscience deny them the help they need. Anderson and Perkins can read and write, but just barely.
If their petition is poorly written, the directors will just laugh at them."
"But what about your own future?" she reminds him.
Isaac shakes his head and sighs.
In subsequent correspondence (written with DuBois’s help) Anderson and Perkins are much more insistent that the settlers
would not be governed by the company’s agents in Sierra Leone and want to have a voice in the selection of any future
governor: "We did not come upon a childish errand, but to represent the grievances and sufferings of a thousand souls. We
expected to have had some attention paid to our complaints, but the manner you have treated us has been just the same as if
we were Slaves, come to tell our masters of the cruelties and severe behaviour of an Overseer." 2
When the directors realize that Anderson and Perkins are in touch with DuBois, he soon receives a letter from them. He
reads it in the public room as he and Anna Maria are having lunch. "They are dismissing me."
"The directors?"
"Yes. Thornton says that the settlers’ petition had been ‘Hasty, and the facts therein ... chiefly founded
on mistake and misinformation’." He scans down the page, then summarizes what he has read. "Malicious advisors like
me are at fault. Any hardship in Freetown has been caused by a temporary shortage of provisions; since that problem has been
corrected, Anderson and Perkins should go back to Freetown and stop causing trouble." 3
"And you may go to the devil."
"That’s what it amounts to."
* * *
Here ends Anna Maria’s travel book. What she adds hereafter is written in frustration because she and Isaac are short
of funds. The Sierra Leone Company owes money to the late Alexander Falconbridge, which she is determined to collect.
Endnotes:
1. Fyfe, Anna Maria Falconbridge, p. 131: One of the charges against the slave
trade that Thomas Clarkson had made, and that Falconbridge had substantiated from numerous instances, was the brutal way that
captains of slave ships ill-treated the members of their crews. It may be that the praise given here to Captain Shaw, who
was no doubt returning home from delivering slaves in Jamaica, was a conscious attempt to present a slave-ship captain in
a favourable light.
2. Wilson, The Loyal Blacks, p. 297.
3. See Clifford, pp. 160-161.
Return to Introduction for Anna Maria's diary
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