Michael Veitch - Hell Ship

Although it is impossible to be exact, it is estimated that between half and two-thirds of the population of the Scottish Highlands was dispersed by the Clearances in the first 30 years of the nineteenth century. Now half a million sheep grazed the otherwise empty glens, wandering across the ruins of myriad houses, nibbling at the occasional potato shoot that still managed to appear in what had been a garden patch that had once sustained several families, wandering through the ruins of kitchens, climbing over the broken stone walls and hearths of former homes.

With awful irony, the Highlands now became something of a tourist playground. English visitors began to arrive, invigorated by the area’s magnificent walks and clean country air, now accessible with excellent new roads, bridges and inns. Deer and grouse shooting parties—which hunted for amusement the same game upon which others had relied for sustenance—began to pour into the area, happy to fork out the handsome fees the estate owners charged for the privilege. Highland culture even underwent something of a revival. The tartan and the Tam O’Shanter began to be sported by the young and fashionable of Edinburgh and London. The works of Sir Walter Scott and Robert Burns began a romanticisation of the Highlander that persists to this day. Of the Highlanders themselves, however, there was no sign whatsoever—save for a few wandering vagrants—and only piles of scorched stones to indicate they had ever been there at all.

Clinging to their thin allotments along the coast and the islands, many dispersed Highlanders scratched out a bleak existence, but the herring fishers found that the fish were unreliable—sometimes disappearing for a year or so before inexplicably returning—and storms along the wild west coast smashed boats and split apart nets. Many worked in the kelp industry, but when the Napoleonic Wars brought an end to tariffs on cheaper Spanish kelp, the Highland market collapsed.

Then, to pile further woe on misery, in the summer of 1846, clouds of white spores began to be carried across the Highlands by wind, man and beast after a tumultuous year of severe drought followed by savage storms and floods. This fine white powder settled on everything that grew. Almost overnight, the potato plants began to blacken, their leaves turning to slime. When opened, the tubers in the earth were found to be black and rotten, and smelt of death . The blight had arrived.

Although never as severe or as prolonged as the Great Famine that had broken the previous year and continued to rage across Ireland, the Highland famine put 200,000 people at risk of starvation. The potato had only been introduced to the Highlands and islands a century before, but, particularly after the Clearances, it was found to be one of the few crops that could be relied upon in the doubtful soils along the coast. By the 1840s, one half of the entire Scottish population lived on the potato for nine months of the year, while in the Highlands, it was estimated to be two-thirds.

The blight wreaked its havoc with astonishing speed. Entire fields which were healthy on a Friday were black and rotten by Sunday. By the summer, it was evident that the entire Highland potato crop had failed.

While the death rate across the Highlands increased threefold—primarily from malnutrition and associated illnesses—the massive level of mortality seen in Ireland was avoided. As had happened there, however, the sanctity of commerce remained inviolable, and even in the face of starvation, ships departed Scottish ports weighed down to the waterline with Scottish foodstuffs such as oatmeal to honour contracts signed in England and further abroad. Soon, vessels in harbours required naval protection from rioters on the docks.

A government relief fund of sorts was established whereby recipients were required to work hard on government projects—such as road building—in order to receive any support at all. The terms were harsh. If only one member of a family of any size was deemed to be working, the rest were ineligible for any relief whatever. By 1850, however, the relief had all but run out, while the blight in some areas persisted. It was the final straw for the Highlanders. For thousands, there was now no alternative but to emigrate.

With the blight eradicating any hope that the Scottish islands might become self-sufficient, the Skye Emigration Society was formed in 1851 to deal with the humanitarian crisis unfolding there. It soon evolved to include the entire Highlands as the Highland and Island Emigration Society, with its aims being

to procure help for those who wish to emigrate but have not the means of doing so, to afford information, encouragement and assistance to all whom emigration would be a relief from want and misery. [6] Prebble, 1963, p. 201

And so began the mass exodus of the Highland Scots to all parts of the world, particularly Canada and Australia, answering the calls from the labour-starved colonies. There, they were assured, they were both wanted and needed. For many Scots travelling to Australia, the irony was not lost on them: sheep had forced them out of their old homes, and it was sheep that were now luring them to the new. Since 1845, in Ross and in the Isles, the Great Cheviot Sheep had been making sure that its cousins in Australia would not want for drovers. [7] Prebble, 1963, p. 205

Over the next decade, an estimated 16,000 Highlanders finally decided that, after exile and famine, their best and only hope lay on the far side of the world.

The humid conditions on board the Ticonderoga continued during the first few days of sailing, during which the passengers had their first experience of weather at sea—and it was not pleasant. Soon after departing, a sudden squall had burst overhead in a thick summer downpour. Torrents of rain lashed the ship and the sea stirred in white-capped fury. Confined below for the first time, the passengers heard the main hatches leading up to the open deck being noisily battened down and the ventilation mechanism that had managed to supply at least some fresh air was disengaged. The sea erupted further as the Ticonderoga reached the open water, beyond the protective lee of the southern tip of Ireland. Huddling in the lower decks, many passengers could scarcely believe that a ship of this size could be tossed so violently, like a toy boat on a river being tumbled in an eddy. Suddenly, the great ship’s more than 1000 tons—which had felt solid and comforting—counted for nothing.

Then, for the hundreds on board, the ordeal of seasickness began. It is safe to assume that almost none of the passengers had experienced a voyage of any length, with the overwhelming majority never having been to sea in their lives. Now, suddenly, they were subjected to the fierce waters of the Atlantic on the longest journey in the world in conditions any present-day traveller would find utterly unbearable. As another ship’s surgeon, a Dr Skirving, observed on board a similar emigrant vessel:

Unused to the sea, seasick, homesick, cold, wet, fearful and battened down, few aggregations of human wretchedness could be much greater than was to be found… in the close dark ’tween decks of an outward-bound emigrant ship. [1] Charlwood, 1981, p. 102

The unfamiliar and debilitating bouts of nausea were bad enough, but in those first few days, the realisation dawned that it was in these few pitiful square feet of space that the indignities of illness as well as the myriad other aspects of ship life were to be endured. Married couples were allotted the berth’s top bunk, measuring 6 feet long and 3 feet wide, permitting just 18 inches per person. The same dimensions were given to single women, who were likewise expected to share a bunk, with only the single men—who slept alone—given slightly more room, their bunks measuring 6 × 2 feet. Children occupied the lower bunks in the married quarters, and as two children under fourteen years constituted a single ‘statute adult’, they were expected to arrange themselves in any cramped and uncomfortable manner they could. There was no advantage to be had for married couples without children either, as their bottom bunk would be occupied by another couple, or even another couple’s children.