[Thomas Waters to his parents]
[from a transcript]
Wealth of Nations – at sea
Lat.8°S. Long.29°W. Xmas 1866
Dear Father & Mother
It being Xmas day my thoughts revert to Old England and you, what a merry merry time it used to be when we were young. I hope you both and all at home, Eliz, Sarah, Jane, Nancy and Ben & Barbara are well and enjoying a Merry Xmas with the prospect of a happy New Year. We are just to the Southward of the Line, crossed it last Saturday December 23rd. We have had a very pleasant voyage so far with the exception of the first night from Liverpool, when we encountered a very heavy gale and two of my crew got badly hurt, one fell from aloft and broke his hip bone into half a dozen pieces, but he is well now and doing light duty, the other is still laid up. I was thinking the night we left while I was fixing up in the cabin the groaning cripple – Ben & Barbara would just be taking their comfortable supper, however we were more fortunate than some other ships for in the morning I saw several running back for a port. Ben & Barbara and their little Tommy were kind enough to come and see me off, tho’ it was their busiest day and I have to thank Mr Bake and his brother and Ben for the cheerful look at the present moment of my cabin, ornamented with a fine blooming fuschia, a thrifty slip of geranium, Jane’s ivy, Papa’s little gooseberry bush quite green, Ben’s beautiful pot of green moss or fern very thriving, Ben’s crocuses just above ground but the climate too hot, Jane’s sweet peas come up but die, likewise the convolvulus seeds, the mint lived some time but is dead now. My old Madeira wine is prepared I hope to safely accompany me another long voyage – it has been with me for about 8 years. I should have fared rather badly if it had not been for Ben & Barbara; they attended to all my wants, supplied me with thread, needles, buttons, pins etc. and as I happen to have a good tailor, but very bad sailor, on board I can get all my much dilapitated garments mended, all my nightshirts gave out, they were very old so the tailor yesterday made me a nice one out of some linen sheeting that Barbara bought for me, he hems the new sheets and in fact is very useful in his way, but useless for what I shipp’d him for. I do not think I ever enjoyed better health than since I left port.
I think that bad spell has worked off all the bad blood and it was fortunate I was so near Barbara & Ben, Barbara used to make beef tea, cocoa, gruel, sago etc. and Ben used to bring them to me hot, either on board ship or else every night and morning while I was in bed and I have still got some cake and other little niceties that they brought me. I hope Eliz’s health is improving and that Mr Pyne is well again. I often look at the photographs of their house etc which they kindly sent me. I have got Jane’s blackberry basket with a bunch of nuts and an acorn in company hanging up close to where I now am writing, in fact within two feet of my nose, and alongside of them two butterflies and an African grasshopper that came on board off the Cape de Verde, I am preserving them for Sarah’s museum. I wonder if Sarah has forgotten how her mulberry tree suffered while I was there. Does Nancy still believe in Worcester sauce and cheese. Now dear Mother it is just time for me to take the sun as it is near the meridian, so I will wait for another time to fill up this letter. We have a capital cook and stewardess and I have two of my old officers with me so twadle, tweedle, twidle etc
Sunday December 30th I have just been reading over a lot of my English letters, they give me much pleasure, they are all such kindly written ones. We are nearly right under the sun and Papa can explain how hot that means; however I am in capital health, take a good bath every day, drink no coffee and walk the poop half the day and half the night; sometimes we see a distant ship and perhaps if near enough exchange signals, but take it all together a sea walk on the poop though ever so long is rather dreary and monotonous, still it is not altogether uninteresting and I must say I rather enjoy it, I suppose from habit. For as the old sailor song runs
“With his light shining pumps and jacket so blue,
He will walk the quarter deck as his daddy used to.”
You must not take this to be literally true because in fact it is literally untrue. I walk in slippers and no jacket and on the poop instead of quarter deck, but the sense of the lines is perfectly true.
New Years Day 1867. We are now nearly out of the tropics but the thermometer about noon still shows blood heat. Today when we were children used to be the cold plum pudding and caraway seed cake day and what appetites we all had except Ben, tho’ Ben now has a very good appetite, and if it was a question of economy I would suggest keeping him a week rather than a fortnight.
I never ate a plum pudding equal to yours for goodness, but your caraway seed cake! what a dear cunning good Mother you were to christen it cake, and to allow us to carry off a big piece to our lock up drawers, no fear of it being wasted, we used to have caraway breath for a week afterwards. When I was doing duty as steward or kind of cook on board the barque Fawn I experimented in the pastry line and among other things I tried to make your caraway cake. I mixed up flour, water, lard or butter and sugar and seed, baked and tasted it but it was not like yours, so I put in more butter and sugar baked and tasted as before but I found I was adding in the wrong direction, so I put in less butter and sugar, that tasted more like it so I was encouraged to try again, so I used very very little butter and sugar, that came quite near the mark but yet not quite the thing, then for a last trial I omitted the butter and merely threatened a little sugar and I think I have got your recipe.
Sunday January 26th 1867. We are now off the Cape of Good Hope, very cold wet weather and I find the rapid change of climate affects me much more than it used to. We had a quick run from the tropics to our present position 600 miles S. of the Cape, it keeled me up, but I am quite right now.
Sunday February 3rd. We are now off St Paul’s Island [Ile Saint-Paul] and the first land that I put my foot on after leaving London in the “Fawn” how many years ago I forget. I have been reading over some of Uncle’s letters that he wrote me many years ago. I keep all his and your letters they are so kindly written. I hope Uncle is well I could hardly exchange a word with him, he seemed so affected with old memories I suppose. I thought I should have had another opportunity of seeing him before I sailed but my busiest time coming prevented me from either writing to Rochdale or to Cousin at Manchester, they were all very kind to me.
Eddy showed me over their mill, he has grown a fine looking man, I think he looks more like Aunt than Uncle. Looking over my portfolio I fell in with Mr Pyne’s remarks on the National resources taken from the London Mercantile Journal and I think his suggestions most excellent and quite feasible, indeed I fancy that government since the publication has been gradually adopting the advice towards direct taxation, I would like to have a list of all Mr Pyne’s publications.
Sunday February 10th 1867. About the middle of the Indian Ocean, beautiful day, the first for a month. I have just been gardening and you can scarcely imagine how refreshing just the sight of a few green leaves is. Ben’s beautiful moss grows lovely – and the slips they brought me are thriving except the jessamine. Nancy’s ivy is alive and the flowers that the Mr Bakes kindly brought me. Ben’s crocuses flowered off the Cape when the weather was cold and my garden was beginning to have a horticultural appearance when some rascally rats commenced giving friendly pic-nics and general invitations to all their relations, they would actually bring pieces of bread among my plants and of course trample and gnaw off all they liked of my flowers. Perhaps I wrong the rats and they may merely have intended to prepare their minds so as to fit them to become members of my agricultural society. I will teach them aquatics if I catch them by the tail. I heard a sailor just now tell his shipmate that we were ninety odd days exactly out from England and I have been thinking what rule in arithmetic can prove what number of days that exactly is!
March 7th. My dear Mother. I just write a few lines because I know you are thinking of me this day [his birthday] – we passed thro’ the strait of Sunda last Monday and I got a good supply of fruit and chickens, potatoes and onions and am in very good health. We are making a long passage but we have so much calm weather that it cannot be helped, two days fair wind would put us into port.
March 27th. Arrived all well and find out by comparison that we have not made a bad passage, as we have beaten all the ships yet. I received letters from Mamma Nancy and Ben with many papers. I do not know yet where we will go to from here. Hoping all are well as I am
I remain
Your affectionate son
Thomas Waters
April 3rd 1867
Received at Hook on 5 May 1867 by Southampton Mail.