Master Mariner

THE LIFE AND VOYAGES OF

AMASA DELANO

Captain Amasa Delano, 1763-1823



BY
JAMES B. CONNOLLY

1943

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CHAPTER XI

Beating Back to India

AMASA SAILED from the Île de France on February 21st, 1794. Once in open water he aired his further opinions of the government he had left behind:

"When word came of the declaration of war in 1793, the inhabitants of the Isle were industriously pursuing their agriculture and commerce, and were as honest and honourable as people usually are in a place of trade. They soon learned to cry Liberty and Equality! The tyrant is dead! Oppression is destroyed! The rights of men are triumphant! And while so shouting, some were making all they could from the revolutionary mania."

Good people were there too. As:

"The Governor of the Isle, Malartick, one of the best of men, did all in his power to restrain the people from doing wrong. When the Assembly met to legislate, one club of low and unprincipled men, who still had great popular influence, would organize to prescribe what the Assembly would do. When the Assembly was about to pass any law, which the club did not like, they would raise a clamour, and use threats to prevent it. When Malartick would rise and begin to speak in favour of the law, they would seize hold of him, threaten him, and shake him violently for a time. He would remonstrate with them; tell them that they ought to hear him, and that they would find him their friend. He would then go on, after they were appeased for the moment, and point out to them the great advantage of having the proposed law, and the immense evils of being without it, until the leaders would find the multitude too much affected to permit them to continue their violence, and the law would be passed. It was undoubtedly owing to Malartick's practical wisdom, and judicious moderation and firmness, that thousands were not guillotined on the island. A guillotine was built while I was there, and on the front of it was the inscription in French--'A cure for Aristocracy.'"

Amasa was always on deck with a good word for a country or a people he liked:

"The Isle was well placed for commerce, being in the track of vessels bound to or from Asia to Europe, South Africa or America. It had a salubrious climate, and a soil that would grow almost anything in abundance. A crop of corn and then of wheat could be grown on the same soil in the same year. It was lucky, like Ireland, in being free of snakes and other venomous crawling creatures."

He admitted that Nature sometimes went rough on the He, as when a hurricane would come roaring along and tear up big trees by the roots and "pile up the wrecks of stout ships, including two 74-gun frigates on the coral reefs nearby the harbor when I was there. But what place on the navigable globe had nothing out about it?"

Amasa sailed from the Île de France with a sigh of regret for the grand place it could be made to live in. In that he was like many another ship captain of that day. They all had soft thoughts for the tropic isles they left behind.

Hector was the name of the new big ship, and four days out of the Île de France the Hector ran into a hurricane. As before recorded, Amasa had met with hurricanes of old, in Atlantic as well as Pacific waters; and, except to note a ship or ships of his acquaintance gone down, he paid them small attention in his log. One was much like another, beginning with a squall, blowing for a few minutes with astounding violence, going calm for another few minutes, and then coming in full force from a neighboring quarter of the compass--a four-point compass jump, say--and so on.

Acting in that way, a hurricane might broach a ship or take her aback, according to how she was pointing. Either way, if the ship had more sail set than was good it meant a lively time for her. To be unready, even when the ship was hard by the wind, was bad; to be caught wrong by the sudden shifting of great gusts when running was even worse. And the high sea, which a hurricane frequently produced, would sometimes give a shipmaster plenty to think about.

So for hurricanes by and large; but this one off the Île de France was a new specimen, refusing to act like any hurricane Amasa had ever before to do with. It began by blowing violently for eight hours from east to west, west to east, south to east, east to south, south to west. So it blew, then turned on itself and blew the compass back around.

Amasa had clewed up his three topsails early, thinking he was facing no more than a hard squall, and all three topsails were caught hanging like empty bags from their yards while the squall, as he thought, would blow itself out. A calm ensued, which was as expected. And then? What followed was not expected. The calm leaped--leaped--to a full gale; and there was Amasa not daring to send men aloft to roll his topsails tight onto their yards, for fear of the masts carrying away before the pressure of the gale and the men being hove over the side with the masts, and so drowned. Or crushed under the falling spars.

It wasn't long then to the foreyard's breaking in two in the slings. Even while watching that happen, Amasa could not forbear shouting to his first officer: "There! Those foreshrouds haven't spread enough to support the foremast as it should be. The rigger is to blame for setting the foreshrouds like that."

Spars waving from side to side were a distressing sight to the competent builder and rigger that was Amasa Delano. He relieved his feelings in that matter--the hurricane moderating for a moment--by remarking:

"The lower rigging of a ship, especially a large ship, should be over the common size, rather than run the least risk of being under size, and it should have a wide spread. When new, it should be set up well before going to sea, and as often afterwards as it is found to be stretched. Otherwise, should there be a period of warm and rainy weather, your masts may take their leave of you, a circumstance not very congenial to a good seaman."

The hurricane continued raising what devilment it would, and Amasa continued the business of repairing his damaged spars and rigging when he could: laying his course, hauling off and on, and making what way he could--as the tempest allowed.

Île de France from the south-west

Fifteen days after leaving the Île de France Amasa found himself on soundings off 5° 30' latitude and 55° 30' east longitude. That meant he should be handy to the Seychelles Islands, which lie well off the East African coast in the latitude of Zanzibar. That was at one o'clock in the night, no hour for carelessness in strange shoaling waters; and so he let go his anchor and stayed at anchor until daylight allowed him a look around.

The Seychelles are situated not far from where the westerly corner of the wide mouth of the Arabian Sea empties into the Indian Ocean. It was new country to Amasa, all he knew of the waters thereabout being what he could read off his chart or had picked up in gossip with captains sailing that country before him. His charts were recording nothing that his lead line hadn't already told him. It was uneven soundings under him, varying from twenty-seven to five fathoms. Shoals here for a navigator to stay clear of. Yes sir. He made his cautious way off the bank.

It was a clear day, and the now high-riding, bright sun was showing up the coral rocks on the shoal bottoms. The coral rocks, being of differing colors, made pretty pictures. The not so pretty pictures, though interesting, were the schools of sharks playing around the sounding lead. Amasa had never before seen sharks acting like that. They were a golden color, like that neighborly one who had poked his cold nose into his ribs that time on the bottom of Rat-Island-Basin; some smart sharks were among them. Or maybe it was they had been fed already. The crew dropped baited hook lines, but they refused to be tempted. Amasa made notes of these items for the benefit of navigators who might have to traverse these waters later.

So sounding his way into safe water, Amasa came on the wreck of the American ship Commerce. Amasa had seen scores of wrecked vessels in his South Sea cruisings; but this wreck of the Commerce particularly interested him because of her having been commanded by a captain of his acquaintance. The Commerce should not have been lost. In the middle of the night her captain found himself in soundings off what any navigator bound to Bombay from the Cape of Good Hope should have known for the Seychelles bank. It had to be the Seychelles. If that captain never took an observation, if he had been navigating by dead reckoning-- that is, by compass-and-log line alone--he should have stopped to remember that he wasn't now in familiar waters; and so he should have kept his lead going. But the master of the Commerce hadn't continued his soundings, even while headed inshore and within sight of land.

The ship piled up on a coral shoal. After a hard experience on the wrecked ship the crew made their way to the shore. Here Arabs set upon them. Those escaping the Arabs died of thirst and hunger while making their way in-land.

Amasa's severest beratings were for faulty navigation. It was indeed a strange mistake for a Bombay-bound captain to suppose the eastern coast of Arabia was that of Malabar (southwest coast of India). That captain afterwards became a kind of preacher in our country for a new form of religion.

Amasa bore down on that particular captain because he had met him and, meeting him, had measured him for a man who "never should have been given command of a ship. And an owner placing his property and the lives of a crew of men in the care of such an incompetent captain was a stupid man too!"

The Seychelles lay a thousand miles off the African coast. Contrary winds had Amasa tacking almost to that African coast on his road to Bombay. Eventually he beat his way far enough up into the Arabian Sea to be able to lay a fair course to Bombay. He made good time of it on that last leg to Bombay.

"Bombay harbor is excellent in the north-east monsoon, but in the south-west monsoon, it is rough and hard riding, there being no shelter for ships in that quarter for eight points of the compass. The best cables and anchors should be provided for ships going to Bombay. The English East Indiamen prefer a kayar cable, which is made from the husk of a cocoanut, and is more elastic than a hemp cable, and will safely hold a ship riding to a heavy sea as long again as a hemp cable. A thousand ships may lie in Bombay harbor at once."

Amasa had further advices for any ship captain who might have to enter the harbor of Bombay under certain adverse conditions:

"If you make the land in the south west monsoon, you must get your westing before you can come near the coast of Malabar. If you make the land one league south of the harbor, you may think that you have lost your passage, on account of the strong currents, which set to the southward along the coast during the southwest monsoon. If you go much to the northward, you are in danger of getting into the Gulf of Cambay, which is full of shoals and reefs. One great reason why you cannot run safely in is that the weather is constantly thick, and an observation for latitude may be delayed for many days. I have known a fleet of ships to lie off 15 days waiting for an observation of the sun."

And for ship captains when the sun isn't shining:

"Navigators should form the habit of observing the stars for the calculation of latitude, and become so familiar with it as to depend on it. It is very commonly the fact of this coast that the nights are clear for a week together when the days are so thick that an observation of the sun could not be taken."

Amasa met with friendly greetings in Bombay. English government officials gave him high praise for the aid rendered their countrymen in the Île de France, and for giving so many of them a passage to Bombay. Amasa, being low in funds, had a wistful hope that the grateful ones might come across with a few pounds and shillings by way of reimbursement for--well, for the food consumed, if not for the transportation of his passengers from the Île. Not a single one came across. Well, they were welcome.

What the new found governmental English friends in Bombay did do for Amasa was to assure him that the Hector would be allowed to fly the American flag and her cargo declared a neutral cargo despite the Dutchman Van Brann's part ownership.

So far, fine; but troubles aplenty were still to be surmounted by ships sailing eastern waters. French privateers and regular warships were not allowing American ships to carry English, Dutch, or Spanish cargoes--not when they could intercept them at sea. While Amasa was in Bombay a French warship took the American ship Canton off the coast of India because she was carrying English cargo. A headache there for Captain Amasa. He was impatient to get along to China, but the French warships had the English merchants in Bombay bluffed out of trusting Amasa with cargo for the Hector; and Amasa wasn't for sailing to Canton with an empty hold.

The Hector lay to anchor in Bombay for months before Amasa gave up hopes of a Canton cargo for her. He turned his thoughts to Calcutta, which was well up on the east coast of India. A big country, India, and quite a bit of sailing to get around it; and French warships, privateers especially, were cruising not too far off the land, but he decided he could coast it. If a privateer should come bowling along, why, the Hector carried guns too, and he had a sizable crew to man them.

He decided to put off for Calcutta; but before sailing he was informed that the debt contracted on the ship's account in the Île de France would have to be settled. The principal and interest amounted by now to twenty thousand dollars. Looking about them, Amasa and Stewart found a Mr. Dunlap, an American, who offered to advance the money to settle the ship's debt, provided they would bond him the ship and allow him what he thought his due in the way of profit. He would wait for the ship to pick up a freight, and then he would take passage in her to Calcutta; and from there they could sail for America. That sounded like a fair proposition to Amasa until he looked into what Dunlap considered a fair profit on his loan. No, no! Said Amasa. Your idea of a fair profit is altogether too magnificent. No, no, sir-r!

Amasa's and Stewart's hope of making a fortune from their big ship under the American flag was now gone. They decided to sell the Hector, pay their debts, and do what they could with the money left over--if any. But with French privateers running wild in the South Pacific nobody in Bombay wanted to buy a ship. In the end Amasa had to change his indignant no sir-r to a meek yes sir and accept Dunlap's offer.

All this tacking back and forth ashore, waiting for a cheering something to happen, afforded the always-curious Amasa time to look over Bombay. It was the great port of the west coast of India. English merchants in Bombay owned the largest merchant ships in the world; and they would load as many as forty big cotton ships alone in a season for China. Not this season, though. No, no, not while those French privateers were lurking outside.

English money could be securely invested in India, if the native uprisings were not allowed to get far under way. The English garrisons took care of the uprisings. On Bombay walls four hundred guns were mounted; twelve thousand troops were stationed in barracks. Four dry-docks were there for the overhauling of England's men-o'-war. Three of the dry docks were spacious enough to hold a ship of the line.

Amasa took note of numerous other items pertaining to ships and the sea. From an owner's point of view, Amasa thought he could improve on some English customs. Thus, in the matter of the building and reconditioning of ships: The English owners were hiring natives for that work. Amasa, after watching them at work, knew that he could teach them something in the ship line. He was given the chance in Bombay to show what he knew of overhauling a battered and worn-out ship. The chance came through one of his English officer friends of the McCluer expedition, Wedgeborough by name. He was holding down a government billet in Bombay, and, hearing of the arrival of an American Captain Delano in Bombay with English refugees from the Île de France, Wedgeborough looked up this Captain Delano and found him to be his old shipmate. The pair sat in together. The old shipmate tie was still holding. The Englishman spread the word of Amasa's worth as a navigator and a shipbuilder, citing his guidance of the McCluer expedition in the South Sea expedition and his expert work on the Danish ship that had almost come apart in that hurricane of four years before in the China Sea.

While Wedgeborough was boasting Amasa to whomever he met, an English ship in Bombay came up for an inspection. She was surveyed and condemned by a jury as beyond repair. She was a big ship--of one thousand tons--and Wedgeborough, hearing of her, had Amasa go down to the dry-dock and pass on her independently. Amasa reported her as not beyond repair. He hadn't been told then that the ship had already been surveyed and condemned by a board of survey.

Hearing of Amasa's pronouncement on the big ship, her owner asked him if he would risk his judgment against that of the jury who had surveyed and condemned his ship. Amasa said why of course, what he knew he knew, and he was ready to prove it. The owner gave him the chance to prove his boast--or fall by it. Amasa then examined the condemned ship in the presence of the members of the board of survey who had passed her up as beyond repair.

"I directed the carpenters to open the work on the places most likely to be decayed, such as under the lower port sills, the waterways, the main transom, the feet of the counter timbers where the decks come, the lower deck around the hatchways, the different places between wind and water. I used pod augers and not the screw, because the latter always tear the wood whether it be sound or not."

The board members were seeing a sure-enough ship expert making his rounds. He left them dizzy with his technical knowledge and speech. He laid it on. "After seeing these things done, and listening to my remarks, the jury altered their verdict and declared that the ship could be repaired for one fourth of her value, which was a great relief to her owners."

He made the ship fit to take the sea again and was awarded a fat fee for his part. The money allowed Stewart and himself to eat a square meal again without having to sponge one at the home of some good English friend. Also, they could have a room ashore, and not have to slip down aboard the Hector and turn in there of a night in a port where such things "weren't done" by captains of the high seas.