| Title: | Stewart, Frances to , 1822 |
|---|---|
| ID | 4724 |
| Collection | Revisiting Our Forest Home, The immigrant letters of Frances Stewart [J. L. Aoki] |
| File | stewart/6 |
| Year | 1822 |
| Sender | Stewart, Frances |
| Sender Gender | female |
| Sender Occupation | emigrant |
| Sender Religion | unknown |
| Origin | Upper Canada |
| Destination | unknown |
| Recipient | unknown |
| Recipient Gender | unknown |
| Relationship | unknown |
| Source | |
| Archive | |
| Doc. No. | |
| Date | |
| Partial Date | |
| Doc. Type | |
| Log | unknown |
| Word Count | 1419 |
| Genre | journal, account of passage, arrival in the colonies, description of the land |
| Note | |
| Transcript | 1822: July 1-21 [journal] July 1 1822 We are now on the Great Bank of Newfoundland & have just dined heartily on a most excellent Cod which Tom caught yesterday evening. We have hitherto had a most prosperous & even rather pleasant passage. I have not been the least ill, though we have had some very sickening nights. For the first fortnight we got on very fast indeed & hoped to have reached Quebec by this time, but for the last ten days we have had a great deal of calm weather 8t when there was any wind it was not quite favourable. By [tacking] constantly we have arrived so far. I have much reason to be thankful that we have had so safe a voyage & that I have escaped sickness. We are as comfortably settled in this vessel as such a number could be in so confined a spot. We have one very large cabin in which all the Reids sleep, Mr. R. & Tom swinging in the middle in cots. In this we eat & in bad weather we sit there. I have the little state cabin for my party. There are two good & very wide births in it. I sleep in one with my nursling & my maid, Anna Maria, & Ellen in the other. I am very comfortable here & quite independent & though I have only room to stand up & dress myself I am much happier than if we were all together. I am very glad to have it to retire to whenever I like. When the weather is fine I sit on deck all day except at mealtimes. For the last week the weather has been foggy, damp & cold. On Midsummer day the thermometer was only 42 at Noon. This weather is very common in this part of the Atlantic & is disheartening just now as I am in a state of feverish impatience which I cannot conquer to get to the end of our voyage & be settled in our own log house. We have no passengers whose society could be the least pleasure to us. The Captain is just what you might expect to find a person who was raised from being a common sailor. He is rough & vulgar but is anxious to pay us every attention in his power & is very good natured to the children. We are beginning to rock about so much that I must stop writing. Though not sick, I have had some bad headaches & am sometimes stupefied & unable to fix my eyes on anything. Wednesday July 10. Ten days have passed my dear friends since I wrote the latter part of this & yet we have made very little progress in this tedious passage. However, for two days we are cheered by being within sight of land, a delightful sight after having seen nothing but the boundless ocean for 33 days. This land was the southern or south Eastern part of Newfoundland. We saw land on each side of us on Monday when we were between Cape Raye in Newfoundland & Cape North in this island of Breton. They are a very pretty chain of hills ending in abrupt headlands. Today we have been for the most part out of sight of land but now & then had a very indistinct view of the island of Anticosta, a large island 130 miles long & 30 broad, covered with stunted trees, but uninhabited. We have several times seen whales at a distance spouting their jets d'eaux into the air but they have not been very near us & we could only distinguish the immense body of the creature. But we have often seen a smaller species very near us which spouts in the same way, In the very middle of the Atlantic we were accompanied by little birds of the swallow tribe but webfooted. They are called Mother Carey's chickens & are very pretty little birds. When in the middle of the Atlantic a poor little House swallow flew into the rigging & was caught. We have seen numbers of a sort of puffin I believe called shearwaters because they skim on the surface of the water & seem to cut through the waves. About a week ago a little bird was found in one of the boats & I took it to nurse as it proved to be a land bird & we were not near land at the time. It is very like our grey linnet but the bill is very long and crosses over at the point like the crossbill. I have kept it in a basket. It is going on very well & is so tame that it eats out of our hands & sits on our shoulders. Yesterday it sat on my head all the time I was at dinner. It is a dear little thing but does not attempt song. We are now in the gulph of St. Laurence,the weather extremely cold. Sunday July 21, Quebec. Here we are at last safe & sound after a passage of exactly 7 weeks & one day. We reached this new world at about eight oClock this morning. All our passage up the river has been most interesting. The views on both sides (since we have been able to see land on both sides at once) have been the most beautiful I ever saw. For above 200 miles along the coast of Nova Scotia we were within sight of the finest mountains covered with trees from the highest point down to the waters edge. As we approached the Canadian coast the headlands were equally beautiful & surpassed anything I had ever seen except Killarney. Some of the views reminded Tom very much of the [ ]. Altogether I was delighted more than I can express and Oh how often did I wish that I could share my pleasure with you, all my dear friends. We came on slowly. On Saturday night last, we came to that part of the river where pilots are taken. Our pilot came & we thought ourselves secure against the rocks & banks, but how ignorant were we of our fate! Next morning we were surrounded by a thick fog & even the pilot was at a loss to know whereabouts we were. Fortunately there was so little wind that the ship scarcely moved on. At half past one just as we were assembled for prayers in the Cabin, we felt three great stokes & the whole ship trembled Oh most frightfully. We all remained panic struck for a moment. You may imagine our fright when we heard that we were striking on a rock!! Exactly as we struck the fog cleared off & we then saw that we were close to Red island. Some French Canadians happened to be on the island fishing & as soon as they saw us they came off in their Canoe to assist us. They were very active & very good matured, particularly one old man, who really was most benevolent & never left us till one the next morn'g. We struck there for 6 hours before we moved or could feel sure that the vessel was safe. At last she moved round, the pumps were tried, she made no water. All seemed safe, when bump we came on another rock. Soon, however, after several bumpings & scrapings we got off most providentially. No bad consequence except two of the sailors were hurt, one of them rather severely by the Anchor, & we had the pleasure of nursing him in our cabin all night & the next day & have made him nearly well again. The next day was lovely & as we were obliged to anchor for tide, we had time to go on shore but I have not room in this letter to enter into the details of our excursion on shore, our first landing on American ground. I will keep it for a letter to Kate which I will tell her to send to you. I cannot cram all I want to say into one sheet, and besides I am surrounded by people — 19 in this little cabin at once. I scarcely know what I am about, for Bessy is roaring for me too, but notwithstanding all my confusion my heart is steadily, warmly & gratefully devoted to my beloved friends. Give our kindest loves to Ma & Lou, Upton, E'town, Allenstown, &c. |
