In the first few days of November, within clear sight of land, no less than fourteen people died on board the Ticonderoga. Alexander Mercer, 32, from Edinburgh followed his infant son, who had been one of the ship’s earliest victims back in August, leaving only his wife and six-year-old boy. The infant Elizabeth Wilkie perished—mercifully the only member of her family of five to do so—but the very opposite was the case for the Appleby family, which saw the death on 2 November of John Appleby, three, following his younger sister Emma and his mother Sarah to the grave, leaving Silas Appleby, 28, alone in a new and unfamiliar world.
The list continued: Euphemia Reid, 36; John Spinwright, 30; Janet Stevenson; and Mary Bunton, 31. Little James Isbister would be the first—but not the last—to die from his very large family of twelve, who had possibly travelled the furthest of anyone on board the Ticonderoga, having left their home in the remote Orkney Islands off Scotland’s north-east coast.
The worst day of the voyage was 4 November, when seven people died. One of those was Elizabeth Harcus, twenty, who the very next day would be joined by her sixteen-year-old sister, Mary, as the disease tore through the single women’s quarters. By the end of the voyage, her father, George, would have lost all the women in his family as well as a son. There would be more deaths the next day, and the day after that until the warm spring sunshine and healing rest would gradually begin their work. Meanwhile, the ship continued to be awash with misery, but the focus of Drs Veitch and Sanger had to be on the living. Without the continued assistance of their volunteer nurses, Mr and Mrs Fanning and the steady Highland lass Annie Morrison, the doctors could not possibly have coped.
When dusk came, a good number of the sickest passengers had been placed ashore in their hastily constructed quarters. It being too risky to continue transferring patients after dark, Captain Boyle called a halt to the proceedings as the sun started to set. As he did, he was approached by one of the more senior passengers on board, 49-year-old Malcolm McRae, who had travelled with his wife, Helen, 39, and their seven children ranging from seventeen-year-old Christopher to Malcolm, two, who was currently sick. As McRae would later recall in his letter in The Argus, he politely explained to the captain in his soft Highland accent that his only daughter, Janet, ten, had died that afternoon and he would like permission to go ashore and bury her. To Boyle, he looked as utterly worn out as a man could be, but he was at pains to maintain his dignity as well as his manners. The captain had no doubt a refusal would be met simply with a nod, a ‘Thank-you, Captain’, and a quiet departure. Despite the last of the rowboats having returned for the night, some light still remained on the western horizon. Boyle looked around for one of his crew. ‘You would need to be quick, Sir,’ he said to McRae. ‘I cannot have you returning in the dark.’ McRae shook his hand. ‘I thank you, Captain,’ he said, with just a hint of a failing voice.
With the help of her eldest brother, Christopher, the girl was retrieved from below and her father carried her out, under a cloth, her small body appearing to weigh little more than the cold, damp clothes that clung to her. He was led down the side gangway and waited there while the sailor retrieved the small rowboat. Doyle watched them as they set off for the nearby shore, the rich red rays of a dazzling sunset lighting his expressionless face.
A short time later, at the very edge of the dusk, they returned to the ship, where yet more grief awaited Malcolm McRae. His son, Malcolm, had also now died. Once more, he politely requested permission to bury him, but this time Boyle had to refuse. ‘Thank you, Captain,’ was the man’s only reply, as he nodded and turned quietly away, having lost two children in a single day. His son would be buried beside his sister the next morning, in a dry plot behind the dunes that the first mate had pegged out that afternoon. The boy would not be the last member of his family that McRae would have to bury before the ordeal was finally over.
24
The Lysander
Sick and bewildered, not understanding why help from Melbourne had failed to arrive, Dr Sanger that evening dictated a midnight letter to James Veitch (which, 131 years later, I would find in the Public Record Office in Kew). He intended it to be read by the highest authorities in the colony, but not knowing exactly who they were, he addressed it somewhat generally to ‘the Colonial Secretary’, who at that time was also Port Phillip’s first police magistrate, William Lonsdale.
Sir,
I have the honour to announce the arrival of the Ship Ticonderoga from Liverpool with a large number of government immigrants on board under my superintendence.
I deeply regret to have to inform you of the serious amount of formidable sickness prevalent during the whole Voyage, especially toward the latter part, and of the long list of Fatal cases resulting therefrom, in the greater numbers from Scarlatina and other Febrile diseases, nearly the whole of which have assumed a Typhoid character… which appears rather on the increase than otherwise and I fear will continue to do so as long as the emigrants are in the vessel. The Deaths have been 100 in number and Births 19. No. of souls dispatched from Liverpool 795. There are at present at least 250 patients requiring treatment, and both my coadjutor Mr Veitch and myself are almost wearied out by the constant demand for our services, especially as it is impossible to get proper nurses for the sick in sufficient numbers.[1]
He then requests
sufficient supplies of medicines including, Porter and Ale, Wine and Brandy sufficient for the Emergency; also a quantity of beds and bedding as those belonging to the majority of the patients seriously ill are completely spoiled. As the state of the Emigrants demands steps to be taken instantly for their relief, the Captain and myself have made arrangements for the removal of a portion of them on Shore, a covering of a temporary nature being in the course of erection. From the statement of the Pilot who directed us to proceed to the Quarantine ground, and informed us that the Emigrants might go on shore, we expected to have been visited by the health officer to-day, but as no less than seven persons have died within the last 24 hours, and many more are in a very precarious state, we have deemed it indispensably necessary to apply for the articles annexed without delay.[2]
When, a few days later, Lonsdale put the letter in front of Lieutenant-Governor La Trobe, the worst of his earlier fears for the Ticonderoga were confirmed.
The morning following Sanger’s late-night missive, Captain Ferguson, along with the new sanitary station superintendent Joseph Taylor, finally arrived aboard the fully laden Empire. Having sailed through the night, he pulled up in the Empire and stood off from the much larger ship lying quietly at anchor in the little cove called Abraham’s Bosom. ‘What ship is that?’ Ferguson called. At first there was no response to the prescribed maritime ritual. He hailed her again. ‘What ship is that?’ If the captain was not on deck, the officer of the watch would normally be the one designated to make the response. But the great black clipper was as quiet as the grave. Eventually, a weary voice hailed back in the dawn light across the glassy still water, ‘Ticonderoga’.