Sugar in the Blood Read Online Free PDF

arrival. It was no wonder that Samuel Johnson famously remarked that “Being on a ship is like being in jail, with the attendant chance of being drowned.”
    It took some time to become accustomed to being at sea. Richard Ligon wrote about the perils of the ocean, its “operation and the several facesthat watery Element puts on, and the changes and chances that happen there, from Smooth to Rough, from Rough to Raging Seas, and High going Billows (which are killing to some Constitutions).” In the early days of Ligon’s journey the ship suffered from “scant” and “slack” winds, “the weather being very calm and almost no wind at all.” But later on there were storms so severe that he and his shipmates feared for their safety. In contrast, Henry Colt found that in the first few days of his trip the ship was carried along by “a prosperous gale” only to have the winds diminish to so “niggardly” a degree that “the breath the ayre gives us, is noe other butt like the languishinge motions of a dyinge man.” For both men, the unpredictability of the weather only added to the
longueurs
of the journey. The voyage could be completed in six weeks but often stretched to months. Tales of terribly protracted Atlantic crossings reached the status of legend: the
Virginia Merchant
, for example, took twenty-two tempest-tossed weeks to arrive at its destination in Virginia in 1649. When its food supplies were exhausted the passengers had started eating rats, and when those ran out they turned to cannibalism. “The living fed upon the dead,” declared one lurid narrative.
    There were other trials. Seasickness affected almost everyone at the beginning of the journey, until they found their sea legs. My ancestor was unlikely to have escaped its symptoms: dry mouth, headache, vomiting and dizziness. There were no effective remedies against it, despite the myriad quack potions sold by apothecaries. The tossing and turning of the ship also caused injuries: bruises and broken bones were frequent as unwitting passengers were thrown against the hull of the ship. Deaths on board were common. There were plenty of accidents: one unfortunate passenger bound for New England, attempting to fish for mackerel, managed to get tangled in the ship’s rigging and fell overboard to his death. There were frequent outbreaks of smallpox and “ship fever.” And the longer the journey, the greater the risk of scurvy. In the seventeenth century its cause was unknown, and it was often ascribed to bad air, thickening of the blood or melancholy. The ships carrying servants to the Chesapeake and the West Indian colonies provided the poorest accommodation, so they often had the worst health problems. One passenger on such a voyage wrote: “Our ship was so pestered with people and foodes that were so full of infection that after a while, we saw little but throwing folks over board.” Many also wenthungry as unscrupulous suppliers maximized their profits by delivering second-rate goods to ships: musty oatmeal, rotten cheese and rancid butter, the state of which would only be discovered after departure.
    But perhaps the most unexpected annoyance was the noise: the tramping sounds of the sailors as they thudded across the decks, as well as their constant shouting, in particular that of the captain, whose ability to be heard for miles around seemed the primary requirement of the job. There was the creaking of the wood, the whining and sawing of the ropes and the whipping and flapping of the sails. And then there were the animals: the average seventeenth-century vessel was a cacophonous floating menagerie of dogs, pigs, horses and poultry.
    Worse than these daily nuisances was the very real danger of pirates. Even while still in the English Channel, “Dunkirkers” often boarded ships. In one notorious case in 1637, the English ship
Elizabeth
was surprised by warships from the Spanish West India fleet while sailing the southern route to America. All