EJANZH: Hulme Chapter Nine

Volume 9

‘Toronado’ to Melbourne mutiny and a shooting cruel treatment Smallpox Quarantine Coasting in ‘Reindeer’ Gold digging again

Having been paid off some 4 weeks previously from the London ship ‘Eliza’, in London, and been ashore that length of time visiting at home near Manchester, I concluded it was about time to make a move again. As I had concluded to go back to Australia, I packed my bag and started for Liverpool, about the 15th of December 1857. I landed at the ‘Sailors’ Home’, foot of Paradise Street, and next day began to look out for what vessels were bound for Australian Ports. I was not particular to what port I went, nor what flag I went under. I found there were some 18 or 20 vessels loading for one place or another in the Colonies, all to sail inside of about 2 weeks, some English and some American, all advertising for passengers.

Of the whole fleet, the one that took my eye was a large, black painted ship, laying in the Queen’s Dock loading. I went aboard to take a look at her and found 10 or 12 men fore-board talking her up among themselves and figuring on their chances of shipping in her; she being an American ship, the ‘Tornado’ New York, chartered to take out freight and passengers by Gibbs, Bright & Co., controllers of the Eagle Line of Australian Packet, advertised to sail for Melbourne, December 20th.

As she was carrying passengers under the British Emigration Laws to a British Colonial port, she had to ship her crew at the ‘Sailors’ Home’ Shipping Office instead of shipping them at one of the established American Shipping Offices, kept by Frank Donnelly and John DeCastro. The men were mostly seamen who had left American vessels and having no discharges from their last vessel, found it difficult to ship in an English Shipping Office, as the English law requires men shipping in English vessels to procure their discharge from the last vessel they were in, or they won’t take them; though if men are scarce, or a vessel has a bad, hard name, that law is sometimes evaded and they are glad to get a crew on any terms.

I mixed in the crowd and got into conversation with some of them. They were discussing her probable sailing qualities. She was a kind of half Clipper, but looked as though if she got the wind that she would make a quick passage out, but the unanimous verdict of all was, that she was a work-house from her appearance. We got an occasional sight of the men we took for boat-swain, 3rd and 2nd; the first mate or Captain we saw nothing of or any men or boys staying by her that we could see or find out.

I went up to dinner and made up my mind to run my chances in her, if I could get my name down on her papers. After dinner I went into the Shipping Office and found out from the Shipping Master that the ‘Tornado’s’ Articles would be open the next day to ship her crew, 36 men, for the round voyage, 2#10sh. per month, from Liverpool to Melbourne, and from there to any place she should be chartered to go to, and 14 men to be shipped as Super-Numeraries, at the nominal wages of One Shilling per month, to be paid off on her arrival in Melbourne. This was to comply with the English Emigration Laws, that require a certain number of seamen for each ton of her registered tonnage, which was 3,500 tons. I found no difficulty in getting my name down to go out in her as one of the 14 Super-Numeraries, on showing my discharge from the ‘Eliza’ from Melbourne to London.

Next day we signed Articles with orders to be aboard the following day before noon, to unmoor and go into the river to finish loading, and set ready for sea. I found there were six more men besides myself, going out in her from the ‘Sailors’ Home’.

We went down to her the following day before noon, about 10 o’clock, and found about 20 of her crew already there, choosing out their bunks, and stowing away their dunnage. The whole of her crew did not get off of her for 3 or 4 days. She had a lower Fore-Castle, something unusual in an American ship of her size. It was roomy and large, even for her large complement of 50 men before the mast, but the dead lights over-head, in the deck, give insufficient light, being forward of the windlass under the Top Gallant Fore Castle, making it necessary to keep lamps burning night and day.

We had not been aboard many minutes before we got a strong invitation to get on deck, from the boat-swain, to get stages ashore. While some were at that work, others were to work getting in her mooring chains. Lines had already been run, and everything ready now for hauling her to the Dock Gates. It was near noon before we got her pointed for the Gates, but not yet high water and no time for dinner. About 12 or a little after, tide made and a river tug backed up to take our tow lines. The gates swung slowly open, and we began to move out into the river; we towed over to the Cheshire side of the river, opposite Sea-come, and let go anchor as soon as she had chain enough to bring her up, and she quit dragging. Eight bells were made and we went forward to dinner.

Here I ought to observe that one of the principal motives of my choosing the ‘Tornado’ to make my passage out to the Colonies was, that being an American ship, we should at least live well, American ships having the reputation of providing better food, and more of it and better cooked than ships of any other nationality — English ships in particular being noted all over the world for poor living, not only for quality and bad cooking, but the quantity not being sufficient for a strong, hearty man, hard worked all the time too, and being stinted to a daily allowance, niggardly weighed and measured every day, became repugnant to sailors’ ideas, who have sailed in any other ships than English.

For my part I never was in but one English ship, where we got all we could eat and no waste; American style, no weighing, no measuring, and that was the ship ‘Eliza’, Capt. Loutitt, belonging to Marshall and Eldrige of London.

As I said, eight bells were struck and we went forward to eat our first meal; there being no boys to get the victuals from the galley, that generally being boys duty in ships that carry boys, a number of us went and took the kids from the cook; as we handed them out we passed them down the fore-castle and then followed them; for the crowd of men we had on board by this time and the amount of provisions that we padded down, did not appear to be any too much, even with an orderly lot of men, who would be willing that every man should get some.

When I got below the scene then being enacted eclipsed anything I had ever seen in the shape of sailors eating. To the reader who does not know, or is not familiar with the usages and routine of a vessel’s forecastle, I had better state here, that every man is expected to furnish his own plate and a pint or quart tin pot, known as a hook pot and panikin, from the fact of the quart pot having a hook on its side with which to hang it on the side of his bunk or sleeping berth; knives and forks not being required as there are no conveniences For using them. No tables, but most men carry a spoon and the sheath knife that all sailors carry, answers all purposes for both eating and doing his work with on deck. The meat, whether beef or pork being cooked in pieces from 6 to 8 or 10 pounds in weight before cooking, and sent to the forecastle in that shape, in what are known as kids, small tubs, a 6 gallon whiskey keg sawed through, about 8 or 10 inches from the bottom or rather from each end, would make two respectable kids of the average kind of kids used on all vessels making long voyages.

As I stated, we followed the provisions down into the forecastle, to find all the kids empty, but the last one passed down, that was a kid of potatoes, boiled with the skins on, not clean and bursting open but with a dirty, greasy look about them. I managed to secure about half a dozen of those and a piece of meat, from one of the men who shipped from the ‘Sailors’ Home’ with me, and from whom I learned how dinner was received. As the dinner was set down, there was a rush made for the kids, with the sheath knives and plates; the first 10 or 12 men who got at the meat, taking the whole of it; the bread and potatoes sharing the same fate. They, then cutting and dividing with their own chums. The cursing and growling was still going on as I got below, putting me more in mind of a lot of wild animals being fed, than human beings.

On getting accustomed to the obscure light down below, I found there were some 18 or so Scandinavians on the starboard side, that had not secured a single mouthful of any thing, and one of them had his hand gashed with a knife for coming near the kids. There were only 3 or 4 of them that could speak English, and those men took the empty kids back to the cook, to get more, but he told them he had sent down all he had cooked for the crew, but managed to pick up about a half a lunch for those who had none. The same scene as that first dinner was gone through every meal with more or less violence, quarreling, cursing and swearing in that respect; every day was almost a repetition of the day before.

After dinner we had a few minutes for smoking, and not being a smoker myself, I threw myself in my hammock, for I was one of four who had hammocks hung, and lay there listening to the conversation going on, I began to form some idea as to what kind of a crew of men I had for shipmates, for what did not promise to be a pleasant passage, judging from apperances. Some 15 cr 20 of them appeared to be well acquainted with each other; most of them I afterwards found out had been shipmates in other vessels; a tougher or a harder looking lot of men I had never had the bad luck to set along with, men who had spent years of their lives crossing back and forth in the old Packet ships that were then engaged in the passenger and carrying trade between Liverpool, New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore and known as ‘Packet Rats’, a class of sailors well known in all the ports I have named. This was the first time I had ever become shipmate with any of them and these were a bad lot with very few redeeming qualitites about them. The majority of them I afterwards found were good, thorough seamen, men who could be depended upon under all and every emergency of bad weather. With 3 or 4 exceptions there was not a man in that crowd, all chummed together, that would hesitate at any crime, from cutting a man’s throat to stealing his shipmates’ best shirt and wearing it next day before his eyes, and if necessary , bringing 5 or 6 men to prove he had bought and paid for it, or more likely giving the man a licking for claiming it. There was a fair sprinkling of most of the maritime nations of Europe represented in the forecastle. There were 7 or us who claimed to be English, 2 French, 3 Spanish or Portugese, 18 or 20 composed of Swedes, Norwegians, Danes and Germans, and but 3 or 5 of these could speak a word of the English language; and of the crowd who called themselves American seamen, their nationalities were mostly Irish and Scotch.

I gathered from the conversation going on among a group of the ‘Packet’ sailors that some of them had been shipmates with the Second and also Third Mate, but the First Mate was a stranger to them, all but two of them had been with the Old Man in some other vessel. They were spoken of as men hard to get along with.

The Second Mate’s name I found out was Mr. Bradley, and the Third Mate’s name was McGuiness, both Liverpool Irishmen. McGuiness married in Liverpool and both having been officers of American ships in the Packet Lines; and McGuiness’ brother was then Captain of the Baltimore ship ‘Flying Fish’. By this time too, we had found out the Mate; I had often passed him during the time we were hauling ship to the Dock gates and after we got out into the river without suspecting who he was, as we received most of our orders through the Boatswain or Third Mate; he was slight built, of light completion, with milky looking blue eyes, evidently an American, and I set him down for a down Eastern, and the last one of all her officer that I should suspect of being guilty of committing such a crime without cause, as I saw him commit in less than a week from that day.

I found out that he was Mr. Merry, and a Southerner at that, though he had none of the characteristics of a Southerner, according to my idea of one, except his fiery temper. During the rest of the day we were kept busy getting passengers and their luggage aboard, on the port side while the starboard side was taken up with lighters and the stevedore gang taking in cargo; for although she was drawing 26 feet of water then, all the water there was on the dock sills, she was not near loaded; work was carried on until long after dark, and 4 bells gone before we got below for supper, and another stormy scene in the forecastle.

I was surprised when 8 bells came that we were not called to keep any anchor watch, as a precaution to keep any of the men from leaving the ship in the river, as all the men who were shipped to make the round voyage had received a month’s pay in advance, that not being an uncommon occurrence with such men as we had a good many cf, to desert from the ship after going into the river if they got an opportunity, but as there were men enough on board to keep anchor watch, we were not called for, besides the crew of 50 men shipped for her before the mast. Then there were three mates: Boatswain and Boatswain’s Mate, carpenter and his mate, a joiner and a painter, who I found out lived in a mess room under the cabin; the First Mate being the only officer who eats at the salon table with the Captain and the salon passengers, of which she had some 75.

The following day we were still taking passengers until noon, and cargo still coming. After dinner we crossed four and Main Mizzen Royal and Sky sail yards. She was a single topsail yard ship. Her fore and main topsails reefing the old fashioned way with reef tackles and jigs, but the Mizzen topsail was a patent rolling topsail, her three top-gallant sails and top-rails and courses and cross jack were all bent by the riggers in the dock.

Next day we rigged out jib boom and set up head stays and all the rest of her head gear; this work being carried on by the boatswain with a gang of men he had himself picked out, while another gang, under the boatswain’s mate went to work lashing boats and spare spars and securing everything movable around the decks, the second and third mate being around the deck supervising everything generally, and with men aloft getting running gear, rove, such as bunt lines, leach lines, Royal and Sky sails, halyards and clew lines fore and aft.

Passengers were all aboard to-day but vessel not near loaded and still 8 men short forward. Complaint was made aft to-day about not getting enough to eat, to the mate; his answer being that while he wanted every man to get enough tc eat he did not propose to load the ship with provisions for the exclusive use of a set of damned hogs, adding to that a hint, that if he heard any more of men not getting anything to eat in the forecastle, he would make some of them wish they had never seen the ‘Tornado’.

To-day is the day we ought to have gone to sea, as per advertisement, but from the report of the stevedores it will take 2 or 3 days yet to finish loading, and although her deck and rigging begin to look more ship shape, there is still plenty to do before she is ready to face the Westerly gales we may naturally look for at this time of the year, before we get far enough South to be out of range of them.

To-day being Sunday, no work is going on after breakfast and decks washed, that, itself being no small job in a ship of her size, with all her passengers around, hog pens, pens for sheep and poultry and a house for a milk cow; but with all this litter and her ship’s galley and passenger’s galley or cook house; being such a large ship her decks did not appear to be much encumbered. Found out to-day that we have among our number a Catholic Priest and a Minister belonging to the Methodist Church who held service in the cabin and the Priest had a Mass down the ‘tween deck as we had a good many Irish and some German Catholic passengers.

The condition of affairs in the forecastle did not suit me; if I could have got ashore, I should have left, but I saw no opportunity of leaving her without losing all my clothing, for I could not get my sea chest out of her even if I could get myself, and I did not like the idea of losing the good out-fit I had bought to take out to the Colonies with me.

The whole crew forward by this time had formed themselves into messes of 6 or 8 in a mess, and whoever got hold of any part of the provisions, cut for the whole crowd he belonged to, no matter whether it was beef, pork, duff, potatoes, coffee or tea. Before letting go the cook had orders from the mate to keep a portion of the victuals of every meal separate, for the Scandinavian part of the crew, and they kept themselves forward in the eye of the forecastle and they trusted no part of their meals to any hand but their own, and they got along with less noise or confusion than the ‘white’ part of the crew, as I heard some of the ‘Packet Rat’ part of them style themselves.

Monday Morning the first tug alongside brought off the Old Man, Captain Munford. The first time I had seen him, being aft at the time at work seizing on chaffing mats on the lanyards of the Mizzen rigging when I heard the Rev. Mr. Hicks address him by name, as he came up the side ladder. I took a good look at him; a tall, bronzed, well built man with short stubby whiskers and mustache black as jet. I was not favorably impressed with his appearance; he struck me with the idea that he was of a haughty, overbearing disposition, and subsequent events proved it.

To-day studding sail, boom irons and booms were sent aloft; to-day too, Mr. McGuiness, the third mate, came out in his true colors. The Main top-gallant studding sail boom on the starboard side had been sent up and the men, three of them had rigged it out so far as to have the black paint on the end of the boom corresponding with the end of the topsail yard. They had forgotten or neglected to attach the tack block to the boom, which ought to have been done before the boom was rigged out, as it then could be done easily, it fitting with bolt and nut through the band on the end of the boom. With a great many abusive oaths he ordered one to lay down for the block. I did not hear what passed between them as the man, a Swede named Erickson, reached the deck, but Mr. McGuiness grabbed a belaying pin from the rail and clubbed him most unmercifully with it and drove him up the rigging again block in hand. When the man got aloft with the block, they unlashed the boom to rig it in again, but Mr. McGuiness had his eye on what was being done, and with an oath ordered them to keep the boom fast and let the Dutch hound take the block and get it out the best way he could. The rigging in of that boom and attaching the block and rigging out again, would not have taken more than 10 minutes time, but rather than let them do it, he compelled the man to ride out 5 or 6 feet outside the end of the topsail yard arm when if he had lost his hold of the boom through any cause, he would have had a drop of 60 to 70 feet into the water; it showed the man’s disposition, and I made a mental note of the fact that the less I had to do with our respected Third Mate, the better I should like it.

The last tug that came off to-day brought the balance of our crew; we now numbered 50 men forward, more than there were bunks for in the forecastle, there being 20 on each side; but there were four of us that had hung our hammocks. Next day finished loading, and by this time too we were getting everything into good shape about her rigging, chaffing, gear, in the form of mats and battens, had been gotten in place all over her. Looking at her as I came in from the jib-boom this after-noon, I thought she was a splendid looking vessel with a big side out of water, her great length and beam made her loom up large alongside of quite a large East India Man, that was towing past us at that time and came to anchor some half mile or so astern of us.

It was talked of at supper, some of the men had heard that at daylight next morning we were going to get under weigh after a few thumps on deck with a hand spike. ‘Below there, man the windlass’; came in gruff tones of the Boatswain’s mate, adding before he left the scuttle, ‘and get around lively’. We were not long getting on deck. The windlass brakes were shipped, and the Normans cut of the windlass all ready to begin heaving in chain but no sign of the tug coming yet. The Mate finding out that breakfast was just about ready, gave the order to eat, so we got a chance to eat breakfast that we should not until late, if the tug had been alongside.

Her tow line, a 9 inch water-laid hawser, had been gotten ready the day before. We heard from some source or other that we were to be towed to below Tuskar; that would give her a good start down Channel. The weather had not been very steady for 2 or 3 days, with light flurries of snow from the Eastward, but this morning it had got round South-west and blowing fresh.

We had been on deck some time after breakfast before the tug was seen heading for us, rolling out her black smoke as she came alongside, the stars and stripes flying at her fore and burgee at the main. We read her name the ‘Constitution’ blowing out full to the breeze. She brought off the Pilot and 3 or 4 passengers who had thus taken advantage of the last few moments ashore with friends. The old Man reached the Pilot on the poop, who assumed charge right away by the order to ‘man the windlass.’ The tug took the tow line and went ahead, keeping the strain off the chain, which came in at a lively rate, a royal studding sail yard having been lashed to the windlass brakes, one on each side to make more room for her enlarged crew to heave.

In a shorter time than I expected, the anchor had broken ground and the ‘Tornado’ was moving down the river with all her bunting flying and 5 or 6 pieces of music playing a lively air, which they kept up until passing Rock Ferry, when we began to meet some sea, and every indication pointed to a heavy blow going on down Channel. The long rolling swell we were meeting, and the three or four vessels running for the river under short sail, all spoke to the sailor’s eye and instinct that we should know before 24 hours had passed what the ‘Tornado’s’ qualifications were as a sea-boat. I heard the Pilot telling the mate he did not think the tug could do much with us after passing Hollyhead. It was well along in the after-noon before we passed the North- west Light ship, and a short time before dark Pilot Boat No. 6 ran alongside and took off our Pilot.

By this time the ‘Tornado’ was making some fearful plunges at times, for one of Liverpool’s most powerful tugs was snaking her along some 7 or 8 miles an hour, in the teeth of a fresh South-west gale and it freshening all the time. At dark Point Linas light hove about 2 points broad off on the port bow 8 or 9 miles off. A good lookout had to be kept on the tow-line for chaffing, the way she was jerking and straining on it, make it difficult to keep anything on it in the chock, for the line almost filled the chock without chaffing gear. As darkness closed on us, the wind seemed to freshen and the sea to run heavier; we were beginning to get the full force of the sea as we were opening Hollyhead.

After supper word was passed forward for all hands to muster at the Main Capstan and chose watches. The Mate made the first choice of a man and the Second Mate the next and so each officer in turn chosing a man until we were all divided in the two watches. I was very well pleased to find myself in the Starboard watch or Second Mate’s watch, for I had formed a better opinion of him than of any of the rest of her officers; I had never heard him call a man any foul name, or strike a man, if he told him to do any work, it was in a certain way perculiar to himself, but forcible enough to insure its being done and that ship shape.

After the watches had been picked out, Mr. Merry spoke: ‘Now while you men are together I want to speak a few words to you; this is going to be the first night out of perhaps a long passage, I hope not, but it is just as well that we understand one another. This ship is going to be a good ship or a bad one, just as you make her. Do your duty like men and you will be used like men; if there is anything wrong or wants rectifying, I want to know it. Use me and the rest of your officers white, and you will get the same treatment in return’. ‘The watch going below and the watch coming on deck at night, will muster round the Main Capstan in 5 minutes from the time the watch is called, ‘Port watch go below’. This was about 6 bells or 7 O’clock, one of our watch the starboard, being then at the wheel, another one was sent on the top-gallant forecastle on the lookout, to let the man go below that was there, he being in the other watch, while the rest of our watches rigged the pumps, the kind known as weege, with brakes and lines.

I was very much pleased to find she did not make much water, this being the first time we had tried the pumps since we had joined her. At 8 bells according to order, both watches mustered aft at the Capstan where the watch going below and the one coming on deck, were counted by the Second and Third Mates, Mr. McGuiness keeping watch with the Mate and acting for him. Mr. Bradley gave the order to relieve both wheel and look- out and go below starboard watch. We went below calculating to get all the sleep we could, for we could not tell how long the tug could or would pull us the way it was blowing. We had had a long, hard day’s work and I think every man below was soon asleep, but it did not seem long to me before we got a call from the deck, ‘lively boys’, to get the canvas on the ship, that the tow line had parted. I don’t think 3 minutes had passed before every man was on deck.

As we stuck the deck she was rolling her yard arm, almost in the water, having fallen off in the trough of the sea. The tug was lying off about half a mile or so to windward. As near as I could judge from her light in the darkness, the fore top-mast stay-sail had been set and the men were aloft loosing fore and main top sails.

Mr. Bradley’s voice rang out clear for the starboard watch to lay aft and haul out the weather main top sail reef tackle and to sheet her home at the same time. ‘Sheet home the main top-sail’ came from aloft, clew-line and bunt line were let go, the top-sail sheeted home, reef-tackles hauled out and we got orders to lay aloft and to get a reef in the least possible time. I never saw a main top-sail reefed in less time than those reefs went in that night. Her top sail yard was so large we could not reach the point, if she had reefed as a smaller vessel would, but both parts of the reef points were on the forward part of the sail and hauled up and knotted to a reef jack-stay on top of the yard. I don’t believe 20 minutes passed before we were down on deck and the sail set, by this time too. The fore top-sail had been reefed and was ready to be pulled up; some of our watch were kept forward to help set the top-sail and loose the fore-sail, put a single reef in it, for she had two reefs in each of her fore and main courses and one in the cross jack, while the fore-sail was being reefed and set, the rest of the starboard watch were taken aft to loose the mizzen top-sail and roll two reefs into that, which was done and then set. We then went forward, the standing jib was then loosened and set.

Although it was now blowing a heavy gale, she stood up well with the canvas she was under, and was making good headway, going off on the port-tack heading off shore of Hollyhead, light on the weatherbeam 10 or 12 miles off.

We then had time to look after the tow-line which was soon picked up and hauled in, though it was a 9 inch line and had evidently parted on the tug’s taff-rail or at her bits. Many hands were light work of it and it was soon hauled in and stowed away for the night. ‘That will do, the watch go below,’ was the next order, and as it was not yet 8 bells – we lost no time in getting below. As we went below there was a burst of music from 2 or 3 pieces among a group of passengers aft on the main deck, and Christmas Carrols started. I stayed a few minutes to listen, thinking of other Christmas Eves I had seen in pleasanter surroundings.

We lay down expecting 8 bells every minute, but I think we must have got near an hour below before it came. As 8 bells were struck, the lookout jumped down from the top-gallant forecastle to call us saying, ‘Hurry up boys there is going to be a row aft’. We were ready to jump on deck at the word. When we got on deck we asked the look-out, a man named Steward, a broad spoken Scotchman, what was the row about? Says he, ‘I don’t know for sure, but it is something about the spanker’.

We went aft and found the whole of the port watch ranged in line on the starboard side of the poop, and Mr. Merry was going from one to another with his bulls eye lantern, asking each man ‘Did you knot that point?’, and each man answered in turn, ‘No Sir’. It appeared that after we went below, the watch on deck were called aft to loose the spanker, put a single reef in and set it, and in tying the reef points some one had tied a second reef point about the third point from the hoops, and when they pulled up, the sail, which was probably run up hand over hand, the sail was torn from the second reef band down to the first, and there being a strong crowd of men on both throat and peak halyard, they had never felt or heard the canvas tearing, but after it was set the Mate flashed his bull’s eye over the sail to see if everything was clear and saw the tear in the sail and the cause of it he flew into a rage, wanting to know who tied that point, and i, he could find out what man it was he would lick him within an inch of his life.

When he could not find out, for every man in the watch denied it, he swore he would keep the whole watch up all night till he did find out, and that was the situation of affairs as we got aft.

The fracas had attracted a large crowd of men passengers round the front of the cabin, who were still on deck keeping Christmas Eve. Both watches were now on the poop deck and the man Stewart, who had been released from the look-out, had come aft to see what the row was about, when the Mate swore he would keep every man in the watch up.

Stewart was standing close to the Mate and said, I’am going below, I have been on the look-out for the last two hours and was not at the reefing of this sail and will not be kept up or punished for another man’s fault’.

As he said that he started to pass the Mate to go down the starboard poop ladder; the Mate attempted to grab him as he passed, but Stewart shoved or struck his hands down and was leaving when the Mate said ‘I’ll soon settle you’, and put his hand to his breast and quicker than I can pen these words, he had fired three shots. Steward must have turned round at the first shot and put up his hand to defend himself, but he told afterwards that the third shot hit him. The report of the shots had scarcely died away before the Captain was out of the cabin door and asked who was shooting: Mr. Merry replied: ‘I did’, and told the old Man in a few words how matters stood. By this time all hands had got down on the Main deck at the front of the cabin. After the Mate had told the Old Man what he had done and the cause of it, his answer was, ‘Load your pistols again Mr. Merry, and shoot the first man that says a word.’ Go below the watch’, ‘hold on,’ says he, ‘Is there a man hurt?’ Some one replied, ‘Yes, there is a man shot in the arm’. Then take him down to the hospital and let the surgeon dress the wound and the rest of you get below’.

Stewart was taken to a room that had been fitted up as a hospital. The surgeon must have heard the shooting or tumult it occasioned, for he was right there to attend to the wounded man. Some of Stewart’s watch mates stayed aft with him and the rest went forward and from them we learned the whole particulars.

As I got forward by the fore mast, I met one of our watch coming aft, says he, ‘There is another man shot, he is now in the forecastle almost dead’. I went below, and sure enough there was a man laid on the forecastle deck, slowly bleeding to death. The first man who came below found him on his breast laid across a chest, shot through the breast. He was one of the starboard watch, and Englishman, one of the men who shipped from the Sailors’ Home’ with me.

He never spoke after he was found; it was supposed that on being shot he started forward without speaking to anyone and ran forward though no one noticed him leave.

We must have been standing somewhere in range of one of the shots and received his death wound. The man I met on deck was going aft to report a man dying in the forecastle. The surgeon had not finished dressing the other man’s arm when he was told about the other victim. He finished with Steward and then came forward to the forecastle. The Man’s name who was shot was Hardy, the only name I knew him by. His shirt had been cut away and the Doctor examined carefully and he rose up from his knees saying: ‘Boys, this man is beyond my aid, he will not live till morning.’ He died in less than an hour, and as soon as his death occurred, it was reported aft to Mr. Bradley, who went into the cabin and reported to the Captain.

There was one thing that I took notice of during the fracas on the poop, neither of the other officers had a word to say but I also noticed that the whole of them closed up to the Mate at the time of the shooting and kept with him until he went in the cabin.

The middle watch seemed a long one to me that night. It was the first time I had ever seen a man shot down on board of any vessel I had ever been in. I saw no justification for the deed committed that night. From threats I heard made that night I expected to see more trouble. I know that over one dozen men were armed, that if any of the officers had ever drawn another revolver there would have been shooting on both sides.

I have often been asked by men to whom I have related that night’s work, why the rest of the crew did not interfere and take a hand in the shooting, but the only explanation I can give is this: For one thing, the shots were fired so quick, it was over before anyone could realize what had been done, and the man named Hardy who died, going forward without speaking to anyone when he was shot, no one was aware of the full extent of the crime committed. Another thing to look at is this: With the exception of some of the Packet sailors, the crew were most all strangers to each other before coming aboard and so could not tell to whom they could look to for support, for 3 or 4 men nor 6 or 8 men could have done anything, for it is well known that the whole of the after-guard, as they are all termed abaft the forecastle, would stand by the First Mate, and I do not believe there was a man among the whole crew who had any other weapon on him than his sheath knife, and it is highly probable that both Second and Third Mates carried revolvers.

Another thing, sailors as a class are slow to commit any act that would be constructed as mutinous, knowing that the power of a Captain and his officers is so absolute, that it is only after repeated and continuous acts of cruelty and tyranny on the part of their officers that the crew venture or dare to take their own part, for any act of self defense on the sailors part is liable to be construed as mutiny.

But I have always though that if the ‘Tornado’ had been taken possession of that night by the crew and taken back to Liverpool, their first officer Mr. Merry, would have been tried for murder; for that man Hardy and the other man Stewart, were shot in British waters, between Point Linas and Hollyhead, less than 50 miles from Liverpool.

After Hardy died the rest of the watch passed quietly, and at 8 bells we were still standing off shore when we went below.

The exciting scenes we had gone through since tow- line parted had created a feeling of good friendship between officers and men up to the time of the shooting. I never saw men work more willingly or more with the spirit of true sailors, than did the crew of the ‘Tornado’ that night, with 1,000 passengers aboard and a valuable cargo and ship, tow-line parted, no canvas on her, and her rolling fearfully in the trough of the sea, and a rock bound coast only a few miles off on her lea.

In less than one hour she was under control, with all the canvas on her, that Captain Munford thought fit to put on her in the gale of wind then blowing.

The excitement and spirit of good feeling were all gone and in place of it an air of depression and gloom pervaded the whole crew forward. The out-look for a long voyage was anything but pleasant. It was a long time before I got to sleep that morning, Hardy’s hammock hung only a few feet from mine and it had been unslung and laid on the forecastle deck under where it hung, and the dead man laid on it, while over in a bunk on the port side was Steward with his arm dressed and in a sling, but cursing and swearing vengeance on the Mate as soon as he got better.

At 7 bells when we were called to breakfast and all hands got together again, the occurrences of the night were freely discussed, and the feeling against Mr. Merry was very bitter and expressed in strong terms; and it was tacticly understood that if there was any more shooting or ill-usage by any of the officers that the crew should stand by each other for mutual protection. That is, the English speaking part of the crew, for there were a part of the crew who could not, or if they could, would not, speak anything but their own language and kept by themselves just as much as if they had been in one of their own country ships.

It was also resolved on that morning that there should be a daily log kept in the forecastle from that day out. 8 bells was made and the order passed to wear ship, the sea running too heavy for her to come in stays if they had tried to get her round that way; so she wore round and put on the starboard tack. The wind having veered round to about west, north-west.

I took the wheel at about 8 bells and after she was round on the other tack she headed up South-west all full, though she was making considerable lee-way with the heavy sea running; the wind however, was running down some and showed signs of clearing up.

This too, was Christmas day and while divine service was being held in the cabin and also among the steerage passengers in the tween-deck by the Priest, the body of our dead ship-mate was being prepared for burial. At noon he was brought on deck and laid in his hammock and a large lump of coal secured to the foot. Just before noon he was carried to the gang-way forward of the main rigging and as the bell struck 8, Captain Munford with all the officers but Mr. Merry, came out of the cabin led by the Rev. Mr. Hicks who read the service for the dead, and at the proper time the gang plank was raised and our dead ship-mate consigned to a sailor’s grave.

The deck was thronged with passengers both from the cabin and steerage to whom a burial at sea was a sight seen probably for the first time by many of them. I have often wondered if there are any of the ‘Tornado’s’ crew or passengers who may still be living that let their thoughts wander back to that Christmas day buriel on the Welsh coast, in a gale of wind, the day after leaving Liverpool, for Hollyhead was plain in sight when we took our last look at young Hardy as he was launched over her side, cut off in the prime of manhood, for he could not have been over 23 or 24 years old.

As soon as the service was over we went to dinner; although we did not miss him as we should have done had we been longer acquainted, still the fact of our losing one of our number in such an untimely manner, cast a gloom over the rest of the crew, that did not wear off very easily.

Towards night the wind hauled around more to the Northward, the yards were checked in, reefs shook out of all the three top-sails and fore-course and main course set, also flying jib. The ship was now going free and with the canvas she had on, making good headway with a good prospect of getting out of the channel and clear of the land. We found out after dinner that there was no after-noon watch below allowed in the ‘Tornado’, by all hands being called up and turned to do work which was carried on by both watches until 2 bells of the first dog watch, when the decks were cleared up for the night.

To-night, too, I commenced to write up a diary or daily log of passing events, for my private use and kept the knowledge of myself that I was doing so .

Next morning Mr. Bradley and the Boatswain came and picked out four men to act as quarter-masters, to do nothing but steer, two for each watch and one to act as sail maker, and were told to get up their clothes and move into a room on the after part of the passages galley to room with the painter and joiner; that was a step taken towards strengthening the power aft, for the men chosen were all acquaintances of both second and third Mates; though for my part I liked the arrangement well, for I did not have to go aft on the poop so much now and necessarily came less in contact with the Old Man or the Mate, who I began to notice seldom left the poop for anything.

For the next three or four days the wind was baffling, sometimes hauling aft so that her yards could be checked in some; then hauling ahead again putting her on the wind though she laid her course within a point or two most of the time making good head-way all the time.

It was the third or fourth day out before we got all her canvas on her and the sea was still running heavily from the Westward, causing her to do a good deal of tumbling around and making plenty of sick passengers, keeping them below most of the time.

The usual routine of a sailor’s life on a long voyage now commenced in earnest; from the moment the watch came on deck until they went below, every man was kept steady to work at some thing or other.

There was one thing I began to notice and others as well; and was talked about in the forecastle. If there was anything to be done aloft at night that required a man to get aloft to attend to, no one was ever sent up, but one of the Dutch part of the crew. If one of the royals or sky sails had to be loosed and set, it was a Dutchman who was sent up to do it; if they were clewed up, it was one of them that was sent aloft to stow them; and if any other member of the crew started to go aloft he was called back and a Dutchman sent up in his place. For some cause or other the officers seemed to be trying to conciliate and gain the good will of the rest of the crew.

The North-west finally died out leaving us rolling and pitching in the chops of the channels. If there is one cause greater than another to make sailors cross and iritable I believe it is a calm. I don’t think I was ever ship-mate with a man either before the mast or abaft, that did not have interest enough in the ship he was in to like to see her going ahead. However, this calm did not last long; when we came on deck at 8 bells in the morning of January 2nd, we had got a nice breeze from the Eastward. With her yards well in and studding sails set on the port side, fore lower studding sail, top mast studding sail, top-gallant and royal studding sail and on the main and mizzen top mast and top-gallant studding sails, she now spread a large amount of canvas and I thought the way she had the wind on her quarter, she ought to do some good sailing when the wind freshened which it did before night.

The log was hove regularly every two hours, but 8 or 9 knots was the most she had done so far, but at 4 bells that night she logged 11 knots and I must confess I was disappointed in the ‘Tornado’ as a sailer, for with the wind she then had she ought to be going 12 or 13 easily.

Next morning we passed the New York ship ‘Cultivator’ from New York for Liverpool; and the same day the Royal Mail steamship ‘China’.

We got a good run across the Bay of Biscay. During these days part of our crew were having a stormy time with the third Mate and Boatswain; there was scarcely a night but some of the poor unfortunate Dutchmen were ill-used, some of them brutally struck down with belaying pins, and suspected both of them with something worse even than that in the shape of a sling-shot or a piece of whale lone loaded with lead at one end, for before we passed Teberiffe, there were 4 or 5 men disabled from work through ill-treatment they had been receiving.

During all this time the Second Mate had never got mixed up in any of this dirty work, and it was very seldom that the Mate Mr. Merry, was seen off the poop, although for that matter there was no need of his leaving the quarter-deck any more than there was for the Captain, for all his orders passed through the Third mate who kept watch with him as well as the Boatswain’s mate, while the Second mate and the Boatswain with him in his watch, so that there was really no need of either the First or Second mate leaving the quarter-deck at night. In the daytime it was different, for the Old Man was around more or less all day.

The sailor who was shot in the arm the first night out, whose name I now know as Alick Stewart, still carried his arm in a sling; he went aft every day to the surgeon to have it dressed. One morning he had been aft and was coming forward when some of the passengers standing at the companion way of the Main hatch stopped him to inquire how his arm was getting along and hoped the First mate would be punished when the snip reached Melbourne; his reply was – touching his knife, ‘This thing won’t wait ’till we reach Melbourne to settle for this crippled arm, I will fix ‘im as soon as this arm gets well.’

He repeated at dinner the conversation that had passed and made a good many threats that I thought he had better have left unsaid, though he was not alone in his threats; they were freely expressed by a good many about how they would get even with the Mate; though for my part I saw nothing to get even for unless it was the short, hard fare we were getting, for it was still a scramble for it to get enough to eat.

The next morning after Stewart’s conversation at the Main Hatch, on his going aft to get his arm dressed, he did not come forward; it caused no comment though until noon, when he was missed at dinner. On making inquiry from the passengers if they had seen the man who was shot in the arm, some of them had seen him going into the cabin with one of the stewards but no one had seen him come out again. There was no end of conjectures as to what he was doing in the cabin or why he did not come forward, but before dark it was well known why he staid aft, when a Mulatto cabin boy came forward to get the wounded man’s clothes, saying he was locked up in one of the state rooms of the cabin.

We were now getting into warmer latitudes; long pleasant days and nights, I hardly know how to describe them. I think in no part of the world have I seen such splendid sun-sets and sun-rises that one sees after getting towards the latitude of the Maderias and South of these, the Canary Islands. The ever shifting forms of the clouds gilt and emblazoned by the setting rays of the sun as it sinks into a sea of gold, lights the whole horizon with the most gorgeous scenery that can be imagined. Just as day breaks, before the sun rises and for 10 or 15 minutes after, the whole sky a few degrees above the horizon seems like some grand panorama, showing large placid lakes with islands scattered over their surfaces, or else looking like some country scene with beautifully laid out grounds in every shape imaginable. It always was a pleasure to me to be at a vessel’s wheel at day break, to see the sun rise in those latitudes, taking from 25 to 30 degrees North, or so far South of the Equator when we sighted the Peaks of Teneriffe and Pico both.

We had light head winds for several days before we got the North-east trades; we got them gently enough at first, but they gradually grew stronger and we were Southing rapidly but most too far for me, for during all these five days there was no rest for Jack before the mast only at night; where a man loses his watch below in the after-noon it makes a long day.

After we got fairly into the trade winds, we unbent all our sails and sent them down and replaced them with an old suit of sails to use while we were in fine weather and to overhaul and repair the ones we had sent down and get them ready for more stormy weather.

The sail-maker was told to chose out a gang of men to assist him, and this time Dame Fortune worked on my side, for I got detailed into the sail-makers gang, four out of each watch; and for J weeks we did nothing but work at the canvas; and nine men out of each watch were taken and given charge of all the rigging standing and running above the tops; three to the mizzen top to overhaul and keep in repair every part of the rigging under their charge; the rest of the crew that were able to work were driven from pillar to post, at every caprice of the officers; but there was one consolation for them during the day time when there were passengers around the decks they were safe from any ill-treatment, but night-time was generally the time they received their punishment.

While we were running The Trades down, some of our Packet sailors got a big scare; not getting enough to eat had sharpened their thieving qualifications and the ship’s galley and the passengers’ galley were mostly the scenes of their depredations for eatables — The ship’s cook had lost a good many pies and pans of biscuits and other articles of food that he had cooked for the cabin steward; for with 75 cabin passengers the steward tried to keep some of the things cooked ahead, but just so sure as any of them were left over night in the galley, they were gone in the morning, for both cooks’ galleys were broken into every night, by some means or other. Both cooks had often complained to the mate about it but he took little notice of their complaints for a long time, but he finally arranged with the steward to have some pies specially prepared for them. They were baked and laid temptingly in sight, before the cook closed the galley for the night, and certain watchful eyes were taking notes at that time. The starboard watch had the 8 hours out that night and some time after we had gotten to sleep we were aroused by 3 or 4 men coming down below, swearing they were poisoned. Sick – don’t begin to describe how they felt – vomiting up on the forecastle deck over head, rolling and writhing on deck and below; for 3 or 4 hours, in fact, they did not recover from the effects of their midnight raid on the pies for three or four days.

After the first week or ten days out, time seemed to pass away very easily with the continual round of work that was constantly kept before us. The day itself seemed long from morning until night, still the days seemed to pass quickly, for by the time we crossed the Line we were six weeks out though it hardly looked that length of time since we left Liverpool.

The Northeast trades ran us to within two or three degrees north of the Line, when we got calms and variable winds for a week or ten days, then we got a nice breeze from the Westward that ran us into the South-east trades, which sent us off on a buoy-line but close hauled.

Affairs seemed to move along a little more pleasantly I think, for two or three weeks after crossing the Line was the most enjoyable part of the whole voyage. I think we fared better for provisions and I think that of itself put spirits in the men, together with a little relaxation from the nightly scenes of bullying and otherwise ill-using of the Dutch part of the crew by the officers; but if McGuiness and the Boatswain and the Boatswain’s Mate eased up on them they often had a hard time in the forecastle; for no matter what the treatment was they received on deck from the officers, they received no sympathy from any one in the forecastle, at least there was no expression of it shown; the Packet ship part of our crew would show them no more mercy than the officers themselves did, and they themselves, showed no inclination to make friends with any one. They were so cowed down in the forecastle that they were afraid to assert their own rights, as an instance of this I once saw plain evidence: I had missed one of my boots for 2 or 3 days and as a scuttle to the fore peak had been opened to get out some coke, the peak being almost full of coke, I did not know but my boot had fallen down there. I got a marlin spike one day and pried the scuttle open and went down in the dark, and in groping about I put my hand on a bundle of clothes and brought them out in the fore-castle. Out jumped a fellow by the name of Tracy, saying, ‘Those are mine, how the devil did they get down there?’ He took them and put them in his own bunk and afterwards wore them, and the man who really owned them and saw me throw them out, was afraid to claim them as his own; he was the same Swede that McGuiness clubbed with a belaying pin before leaving the river.

I don’t believe there was one of the Dutchmen who did not lose clothing – I lost three pairs of good socks that I never found again. Talk about honor among thieves there was none with them, for they would steal from one another as often as they got a chance – My best clothes that I did not wish to lose I intrusted to one of the passengers, a fellow townsman that I was pleased to find aboard, after we got to sea, who kept them for me until we reached Melbourne.

Soon after we got the South-east trades we came very near having a collision; every night after the decks had been cleared up for the night, the passengers would collect in groups all around the decks and up on the top-gallant forecastle, which was long and roomy with nothing on it to encumber but the two anchors that were stowed inboard and lashed from crown to crown of each anchor and the capstan in the center of the deck. It was a favorite resort those pleasant nights in the Tropics, spinning yarns about dear Ould Ireland or the dear Fatherland and singing songs sometimes until 2 bells of the first watch or 9 o’clock, when all lights were ordered out but one hanging in the companion way of the main hatch, and one in each department of the tween- decks occupied respectively by the single men and women and the married folks. This night that I refer to, the starboard watch had the first dog watch from 4 to 6, four bells, and after that time our watch not being on duty, I had gone on deck and mingled with the passengers, going from one group to another, listening to songs and listening to stories.

A little while before 8 bells I had gone into the top-gallant forecastle, where the song of ‘Annie Lawrie’ had been started by a young woman in a group of Scotch passengers – Singing and story-telling went on until 8 bells had been struck and our watch again on duty; but not having any look out that night and no call for any work of any kind, I stayed where I was listening to songs and stories. The weather had been a little thick all day but no rain, a sort of warm haze but so hazy that no vessel could have been seen very far off, and we had not seen a sail of any kind for some days. No one, I think, either fore or aft was keeping a very bright look-out and in those latitudes the transition from day to night is very rapid; there is very little twilight, soon after sunset night closes in.

We were going along some six or seven knots an hour with the wind about two points free, while I sat forward the moon had flashed through the clouds or haze several times, and it was nearly full when it did show through, it sent a kind of bright streaklight ahead of the vessel. In one of those flashes I fancied I saw something gleam right under the moon’s rays – I knew the man who should have been on the look-out and called out for him, to call his attention to it. There were so many people up on the forecastle deck that I could not see him in the half gloom, and not getting any reply I jumped forward to the night-heads to make myself sure enough and to lose no time in getting the word aft. The Second Mate must have been round the deck somewhere for he was soon on the forecastle deck, and as soon as he saw her, he passed the word aft, to put the wheel down hard down; and, as we shot up into the wind a large square rigged ship with square yards and main sail hauled up, went by us as though we were to anchor.

She passed us so close it seemed as though our yards would yet foul, but she went all clear. Our Captain hailed her to know what ship she was, but one passenger set up such a yell as she was passing, that no one could tell what answer came back and we never knew what vessel she was. All this time our look-out was below, and the passengers shouting brought him on deck; Mr. Bradley never knew until I told him later on the gold diggings, that there was no look-out on the forecastle deck that night; when he went up there himself, if he had, there would have been some trouble made. There is no part of a sailor’s duty that wants to be or ought to be more faithfully done than a good look- out being kept at all times; and in a vessel in which I have any authority, there is nothing that I insist upon being more faithfully performed than a good look-out being kept, and not only keeping a good look-out myself, but by seeing that the proper look-out is also keeping a good one.

Soon after this little scare of the vessel, for it was a close shave from collision, I saw an old familiar acquaintance in the shape of an Albatross; he was well North but I had been looking for him for some days. It is very seldom the Albatross comes North of 25 degrees South latitude, but they are found all over the whole expanse of the South Atlantic and South Pacific Oceans, or at least as far South as I have been. I have seen them, that is 65 South, and they were plentiful then.

Soon after seeing the first Albatross, we began to see Cape Pigeon, a small bird some what resembling a pigeon, but beautifully spotted black and white. They are very easily caught; in calm weather they will swim alongside like ducks and will quickly take a hook baited with a small piece of pork. The Albatross is more shy, but numbers of both kinds were caught by the passengers. After losing the South-east trades we had some light winds from all round the compass, not steady and not very strong, but still we kept making South. We learned more from the passengers about what latitude we were in than from any other source, for they would get into conversation with the officers about how we were getting along, about all we could find out was how we were steering from the quarter-master. The nights began to feel chilly and I knew we were getting our latitude pretty well run down, and when we got the wind South- west, and I heard that we were steering South-east, I knew then that we were about far enough South, for the old Man to begin making longitude.

We were now 10 weeks out and I now began to look for a speedy end to the voyage, for vessels can generally depend on fair winds from South to North-west, after getting into from 40 to 45 or 46 South latitude, and I had heard this day that we were in 43 . We were now making good headway and so far had run clear of any sickness; no deaths among the passengers, none since young Hardy was buried off Hollyhead; but a few days after hauling to the Eastward, the carpenter’s mate was sent forward to put up a bunk forward of the windlass, under the top-gallant forecastle. There was some guessing to know who it was for; that night the mulatto cabin boy was brought forward and put into it. This was the first we forward knew of his being sick or of anyone being sick on board, but we now found out that one of the cabin passengers, a lady too, had been sick for some time.

The boy’s disease rapidly developed into small-pox, and what the surgeon’s reasons were for having him sent under the forecastle deck, I do not know unless it was his color.

In less than a week there were three more cases among the passengers, and one of the sailors an Irishman, who went by the name of Barney.

There was a hospital started right off, aft, and among the crew were myself and two more who had had smallpox, and as soon as Barney and the other three were taken sick and the symptoms showed that they were infected, we three were sent for aft, the mate and surgeon wanted to see us, and the mate proposed to us to tend the sick, that we were the only ones aboard that they knew had had the disease, for we showed unmistakable evidence of having had the disease.

We consented, and took up our abode aft in a room prepared for us, so that it was not necessary to come in contact with either crew or passengers. The Mulatto boy was the only one who died, and I shall always think that if he had received the same care and attention, that he too, would have lived.

We were called one night to get hold or him and get him back into his berth. He was out of his head and running around the deck in his shirt, and I think he took cold that night; however, he was the only one who died and we sewed him up, and he was buried at midnight without any ceremony.

We now got strong winds and made good time after we passed the Island of St. Paul in 77 East longitude. I began to feel as though I was getting towards home again, having spent some years sailing out of Australian ports. It seemed like getting back into the old cruising ground – I knew we were rapidly nearing the Australian coast we spoke the barque ‘Pet’ of and from Hobarttown, Tasmania for the Mauritius, twenty-eight days out, and the American Whaler ‘J.C. Hazard’ last from Geographe Bay, West Australia.

The ‘Tornado’ did some of her best sailing about this time; she had all the wind she wanted, and every stitch of canvas set that would draw lower than the top mast and top-gallant studding sails set most of the time, and the best running she did was 13 knots an hour.

As soon as the small-pox patients were all well, the hospital cleaned out and disinfected, we had gone to our duties again in the watch. As we drew near the land, the officers became more easy and less abusive, and it seemed as though the old saying was going to be verified ‘That a bad beginning makes a good ending’. We spoke the schooner ‘Granada’ two days out from Adelaide also bound to the Mauritius. Both vessels hove to and had quite a talk; he had nothing but light weather since leaving Adelaide, that Kangaroo Island, then bore North-East by North 75 miles distant; that was welcome news to me at least, for with favorable weather I knew we could make Melbourne in less than a week.

In the vessel we had just spoken, I had made the passage in less time, having made four or five voyages in her, in the coasting trade between Adelaide and Melbourne and Sydney, N.S.W. some two years before with the same Captain, whose voice and person I plainly recognized.

We, however, did not carry the Westerly breeze long, but the second day after speaking the ‘Granada’, the wind all died away and left us rolling in a heavy dead sea, about abreast of Cape Northumberland, as near as I could judge from our run, for we had not seen any land yet, but we had altered the color of the water and knew we were on soundings.

We had light baffling winds for two or three days and then got the wind from the northward, right off the land warm and sultry, but a leading wind that sent us along some seven or eight knots an hour, and on the night of March 14th, during the middle watch, the starboard watch on deck, we made Cape Otway Light, ninety miles from Melbourne heads, when I went below.

That morning at 8 bells, four o’clock, it was with a supreme feeling of satisfaction to think that the voyage was so near ended for if the wind held we should be inside the Heads before dark.

I was the only man in the forecastle who had been out to the colonies before, and ever since we had been out on the coast I had been deluged with questions of all kinds, pertaining to the country and the distance from one place to another on the coast. Having sailed in Australian vessels for the previous five or six years, and being familiar with the coast line from Kangaroo Island on the South coast to Sydney N.S.W. on the East coast, as well as the West and South-west coat of Tasmania, I felt like getting back home again and was pleased to answer all the questions as far as was in my power; and to many of the passengers I probably gave information that was of benefit to them on getting ashore, about the country, as I had worked at different times on most of the principal mines in both Victoria and New South Wales, for at that date gold had not been discovered in Queensland or Tasmania, and only shortly before in New Zealand.

When we were called for breakfast at 7 bells, word was passed for all hands to mustar on the quarter-deck before breakfast, so all hands of both watches went aft, wondering what this was for. When we got aft we were ranged in two lines on the starboard side of the quarter-deck and the Old Man and the Mates stood there as well.

The Mate held a paper in his hands and as soon as we were in line the mate began to read off names from the list he held, and each man as his name was read off was to go forward to breakfast. We went forward and were most through eating before we noticed that there were some of the men who went aft with us, had not come forward, or at least had not come down the forecastle to breakfast. There were some out of both watches missing, but on going on deck at 8 bells, some of the passengers began to ask what those sailors had done that the officers had put handcuffs on them and took them into the cabin.

We now found out they had taken that plan to single out nine men and get them in irons quietly; the nine men the mate wanted he had reserved to the last on the list, and as he came to those he must have read them off slowly, so as to give the officers time to get one out of the way before the next one came down the port poop ladder, and as each man stepped on the main deck he was grabbed by four men, the two Mates, and the Boatswain and his mate and hustled into the cabin, before he had a chance to help himself or make any alarm he was a prisoner, though the decks at that hour were swarming with passengers who now understanding what was being done, they never interfered, and each of the nine men as he came down from the poop was taken fn hand by the four officers and some assistance they had in the cabin. Each man was confined by himself so there was not one of the whole nine that knew that there was any one a prisoner but himself. I did not know this then but I did afterwards. When it was thoroughly understood that there were nine men in irons, it created a storm of passion forward, and it was proposed by some, for all hands to refuse duty until they were set at liberty, but better judgment prevailed, and there was no show of insubordination made. It would not have done any good any way, it was only a small faction that talked that way; anyway the men who were in irons had always been foremost in their bullying and running the whole forecastle, and they certainly had no friends among the Dutchmen, nor for that matter, among any but their own set, but the object of their being singled our particularly, I could not see for I don’t recollect hearing one of those men ever utter a word in the forecastle or on deck, any stronger than had been used by others as well as them and they were certainly good seamen. They were most all Scotch and Irish but claimed to be American citizens. However, this new trouble did not stop the ‘Tornado’ from going along, for our breeze held and freshened during the day.

After dinner we got up chain and got the anchors on the rail. We were now running along the land some eight or ten miles off, and about 4 o’clock (8 bells) we made out a sloop coming out from under the land who turned out to be Melbourne Pilot Boat No. 3, and put a Pilot on board of us.

We sighted Port Philip light as soon as it was lit, for it was dark before we got to the Heads, and about 12 o’clock that night we came to anchor at the Quarantine station inside the Head in Hobson Bay.

Though it was some 3 weeks since the small pox patients were all declared well, and we had no sickness of any kind since, we had to go to Quarantine for how long we did not know.

Anchor watch was set and the rest went below; next morning the Captain and Surgeon went ashore. I was in the gig’s crew that took them ashore and coming back I gathered from their conversation that we were to be quarantined only three days, but that itself seemed a long time to stay by a ship that there was so little comfort or pleasure in as there was in the ‘Tornado’, and so near our destination too.

The next day the Old Man having obtained permission to send a boat ashore for water, we cleared away and got into the water one of her large boats of which she carried eight. I was not in that shore going party, but was to work with others unbending some of her light sails. They filled her with empty casks and took them ashore and filled them and after coming alongside and hoisting the water aboard the boat was taken aboard again. There was something that did not go right with Mr. Bradley about the taking in of the boat, one of the Dutchmen had done something that did not suit him and he had said something to the man that provoked a reply, that it seemed to exasperate the Second mate that he took out an iron pin out of the fife rail of the main mast and struck the man a fearful blow on the head.

I did not see that act committed as I was down in the sail room with five or six men stowing away the sails we had unbent that day. It appeared the man fell as though he was dead; the surgeon was called and he ordered him to be carried below to the hospital.

After hitting the man Mr. Bradley must have gone to his room, for the first intimation we below had of the affair was the Old Man coming down into the office mess room and calling Mr. Bradley to come out. The sail room was right along side the mess room and was entered from it so we heard every word that passed — He opened on him with ‘Mr. Bradley, what do you mean, you damned hound, has there not been enough done on this ship without you killing another man right here in Colonial waters? Here is the Doctor gives no hopes of the man living. You have caused hell now’. Hot words passed between them when Bradley got to talking, he swore he would kill another one yet if he opened his mouth to him, but the old Man ordered him to stay below and not show himself on deck again without his orders. The Boatswain’s mate was along with us and though our work was done, he would not take us on deck till the old Man had left and the Second Mate had gone to his room; he then took us out and we went on deck and learned more of the particulars.

This was the first time I had known the Second Mate to strike or touch a man or call a man out of his name during the whole voyage. I though well of him and respected him as an officer, he was a strict disciplinarian, whatever he said he meant it in the way of ship duty, and he was certainly the last man of the ‘Tornado’s’ officers, from what I had seen of him, to so lose all control of himself even if the provacation had been greater, as to place himself in the position he now found himself in, for if that man died, his own life would most undoubtedly answer for it.

All that day and the next, preparations were being made for going up the Bay, and at day-light on the 18th, the tug ‘Sampson’ was alongside to take our tow-line. We lifted the anchor and she started up the Bay, and about 3 o’clock that after-noon she brought us to anchor again off Sandridge, Melbourne being seven miles up the Yarra Yarra from where it enters the bay, and at that time vessels drawing over ten feet of water could not go up to the city, all large ships either unloaded into lighters or going to the docks at Williamstown; the ‘Tornado’ was to unload with lighters. That after-noon the cabin passengers and some of the steerage passengers went ashore. I went aft that night in the name of all the Super-Numerary seamen to see how soon we could get to shore, and claimed my discharge according to Articles.

The Mate replied when he got ready to let us go he would tell us, but that would not be until after all the passengers were ashore.

The next morning the mess room steward was running round the decks looking and inquiring for Mr. Bradley, but no Mr. Bradley could be found, and it was reported that he must have gone during the night, anyway he was not in the vessel. The Captain had gone ashore as soon as we came to anchor, so Mr. Merry was now the Executive officer. We were busy all that day getting passengers and their luggage ashore, and before the last boat left, the Mate sent word forward that the Shilling-a-month men could go ashore on that boat. I had already sent all my clothes ashore but what I stood up in, by one of the passengers who had kept my best clothes all the voyage. I went aft and told the Mate that I wanted a discharge from the ‘Tornado’ so I should be in position to ship if I wanted, in a Colonial vessel which I could not do without a discharge from my last vessel, according to Colonial shipping laws. He replied that he had no authority to give discharges, we must look for the Old Man around the Consul’s Office; and as I could do no better, I went forward and we all went ashore, that had shipped to be paid off here, thirteen of us, for young Hardy was one of the number. As we went over the side, the officers kept strict watch that none of the others left with us.

I was glad to find myself once more in Melbourne and lost no time in getting up to my old boarding house on Collins Street where I found a hearty welcome. Next morning I hunted up my Mr. Leech, the man who had my clothes, and after changing clothes I strolled down King Street to the U. S. Consul’s office and asked if Captain Munford had been around that morning. There was a young man clerk, sat at his desk writing, and a small sized man sat smoking a cigar in a sort of easy chair. He turned around and said: ‘What do you want with Captain Mumford’? I told him my business, says he ‘You fellows will get no discharge here if I know myself, you can consider yourself lucky to set ashore out of her’, if he was Captain Mumford he would carry the whole caboodle of us to Callao and make us dig guano. He rose up out of his chair to give more effect to his words and almost fell over. I then saw that the man was drunk, and it was not then 10 o’clock in the fore-noon. I saw it was no use talking with a man in his condition, so I left him to go and find the rest of the men so that we could get together and find out what steps we could take to compel either the Captain or Consul to give us a regular discharge. Our efforts to find the Captain around town at any of three resorts of Americans, proved futile, and three or four days passed over before we finally caught him in the Consul’s office. They were both on the point of leaving and would not be detained, the clerk was also going with them and the only promise from the old Man we could get was that we should have our discharge in a few days.

During these days that we were trying to get our papers we all talked freely about what had been done on the vessel since leaving Liverpool, to anyone we were acquainted with at the boarding house and around the shipping office, but I never thought at that time that it was our duty to have made a report to the police authorities and give the true facts of the case. I could not hear that those men that were prisoners on board when we left had been brought ashore, ten of them, for Stewart had been kept prisoner also from the morning he had been detained aft. I went down to Sandridge one day to see if Icould find out anything about them, and while there got a chance to ship in the schooner ‘Reindeer’ of Hobarttown and bound to that port in Tasmania, if I could get my discharge in time for the day to sign Articles.

I went back to Melbourne, and every morning saw me at the Consul’s office and received more abuse from that drunken wretch of a representative of the United states, than I would take from any man to-day. One of the favorite salutations on our entering the office would be to ask if we could get our discharge yet, he would say, ‘Discharge from what?’ when we answered the ‘Tornado’, he would straighten up, stick both hands into his pants pockets and say, ‘You belong to the murdering ‘Tornado’, do you? No, you will get no discharge from me, you can go plumb to hell for your discharge’, but I found him in better humor one morning and he finally told his clerk to make me one out. I was all alone that morning and I guess he had not got quite full yet. After the clerk had filled in one of the blank forms, he handed it to the Consul to sign.

It lays before me now on the table, and I see it is dated April 1st, 1858. There is also an entry on it that I shipped in the ‘Reindeer’ on the same day. When I went away on the ‘Reindeer’ there had been nothing done that I had heard with the men on board the ship yet, and it was some nine or ten months afterwards before I learned the particulars. I made three voyages in the ‘Reindeer’, one to Sydney and two to Melbourne.

On leaving the ‘Reindeer’ in Melbourne about the first of August in company with a relative whom I had brought from Hobarttown with me in the schooner, we left Melbourne for the Forrest Creek diggings, but we found those diggings overun with Chinamen who were taking the old diggings right before them from the surface to the bed rock and running the dirt through pudding machines. By this method, although they wasted hundreds of tons of worthless dirt by breaking up the slate and pipe clay bottoms, they found not only many a large nugget that had been overlooked or missed by the early gold miners, but also pockets of both rough and fine gold that had been overlooked.

>From the amount of gold washed out by both Chinamen and white men, with these pudding machines, it was said that the early Australian gold miners threw away more gold than they secured, through ignorance as to the real wash dirt. In some instances, the gold was found to be contained in the dirt less than two inches from the bottom.

>From Forrest Creek we went to Castlemaine. There we worked for the Emu Gulley Mining Company in their seventy foot shaft. We remained at and around Castlemaine about six weeks, and then went to Bendigo and there we worked a short time for the Eagle Hawk Gully Mining Co., for a month or more, and then bought tools and worked in different parts of Kangaroo Flat. There were still at that time some good workings around Bendigo in the different gullies and flats between Huntley and Kangaroo Flat, some times making fair wages and some times not getting enough gold during the week to pay for keeping the tools in repair.

We worked around this way for about two months and then sold our tools and tent and went up to the bush to hunt up work among the settlers, for my partner had developed a tendency for getting drunk and I had interest enough in his welfare to try and keep him from debasing himself by getting drunk about every Saturday night, so we struck out for the bush.

My intention was to go towards the Murray River, Bendigo not being more than ninety miles from Echuca, and our intention was to make for that place as I had made some friends there while in the steamer ‘Leichhardt’ and was on good terms with the gentleman owning the ferry. The gentlemen was a native of Oldham, Lancashire, named James Maiden, giving his name to that particular crossing place on the river as Maidens Punt, at that time one of the main thoroughfares for crossing the river Murray from Victoria into New South Wales.

We started, and at Murcheson crossed the Goulbourn river, following the Goulbourn down to Shepherdton, intending to cross the river again there unless we got work of some kind, for by this time, our money was all gone and we were compelled to rely on the hospitality of the settlers, and this hospitality was never withheld by the Australian settlers, on either sheep or cattle stations at this period of Colonial times, although it was seldom a man was asked to come into the slab or bark house, whatever it might be, but the most common way of relieving a traveller who asked for something to eat was to give him some tea and sugar and a piece of either mutton or beef and let the recipient cook it himself. Flour was given the same way, and wherever the camping was done there, the cooking was done, the flour being made into a damper, as the bush made bread is styled, and baked in the ashes.

My mate went into the bar, for there was one attached to the building, to see if he could get some one to put us across the river, while I went into the kitchen part of the house to see if we could get a piece of beef or mutton. While I was still talking to the man cook in the kitchen, my mate came to me saying the gentlemen who owned the property here wanted to hire a sailor to splice a wire cable and fit it for the ferry punt to cross cattle and teams backward and forward, from one side to the other. I went back with him and found the proprietor who told me he had been waiting for some time for a sailor to come along to fit this wire cable and also to do some calking to the punt, a scow about eighty feet long by thirty feet beam.

On finding out that I was the only one of the two who knew anything about the work he wanted done and that we would not separate, he hired both of us at one pound per week and tucker, as the phrase was used for our board. So the following morning we went to work and hauled the scow out, his blacksmith making the calking irons. We calked the scow all over and stretched the wire cable, but the pitch for paying off the seams with and blocks with which to reeve off a tackle, to put a strain on the cable with, had to brought up from Melbourne. We were more than a month at this work and then hired with Mr. Archier, the proprietor, to work the punt for him at the same wages we had been receiving.

While living at Shepherdton, the sheep shearing season commenced, and there being some extensive sheep runs an the Goulbourn and Murray rivers, and Shepherdton one of the principle crossing places on the Goulborun, sheep shearers in two and four to ten or twelve men in a gang were constantly going and coming, travelling from one station to another, and a more reckless lot of men I never ran foul of, not even sailors just paid off from a long voyage could get through with their money as fast as those Colonial nomads of the bush; and after shearing the sheep at one station, they seldom went to work again until the last shilling was gone, and after their horse and bridle, as most of these men travel from station to station on horseback, and the more reckless of them would drink up not only all the money received from the last shearing, but the proceeds of horse, saddle and bridle as well; and one peculiarity of these shearers was to have every man they could so induce, share the drinking with them, and my mate was only too willing.

I was glad that shearing time came near the expiration of our three months that we had hired for, although Mr. Archer was a good, free-hearted man himself, still the interests of myself and mate were too nearly identified for me to leave him there or stay any longer under the influence he was under, so after we had worked our three months for Mr. Archer, we settled with him and started back for Bendigo, going back on the stage.

On getting back to Bendigo, we had to refurnish ourselves with tents and tools and again resumed our search for gold. For a while we worked in the vicinity of Bendigo. We had been out prospecting some twelve miles east of Bendigo. Among some quartz reefs cropping out in a range of hills three miles east of Bullock Creek, we found gold in and out cropping spurs leading up from the main reef. There was no quartz mining going on then within ten miles of Bullock Creek

We found two business men in Bendigo to take shares in the enterprise with us and we went to work putting a shaft down to strike the main reef. After sinking that shaft seventy-five feet, blasting every foot of the way down after the first ten feet, at seventy-five feet we struck water coming in so fast we could not keep it down without machinery and we had to abandon the work and we lost all the time we had spent there.

We then came back to Break O Day Gully, a small gully running into Bullock Creek, there being a dividing range, the gullies and creeks on the east side of the divide running to Bullock creek and on the other side to Kangaroo Flat. Break O Day gully had been rich when first opened, judging from the way it was worked from the head of the gully until the lead of gold had been lost in the flat below. Here we struck a patch of the only payable ground we worked around Bendigo. A short distance from our tent was the tent of another digger, a jew named Benjamin, and his wife, were living there. He had worked in the gully when it was first opened, in fact he was the only one of the men left who took part in the opening of Break O Day as a new rush.

The gully was covered like all old gold diggings with holes or old shafts as they termed them at this time, all filled with water, some with brackish and some with good, clear fresh water. Most of the shafts near Benjamin’s tent were filled with water too brackish to use and she had to go near a quarter of a mile to a hole that contained good water. In her daily trips for water, she one day saw what looked like a small piece of gold cropping out of the dirt that had been thrown out by the man who had sunk the shaft close by. She tried to pick it up but found it fast and left it. She told her husband about it, but he took no notice of it, thinking it was only a nugget and jokingly told her to take a pick out with her next time she went for water and get her nugget; so the day following she took an old pick along and her surprise can be imagined when she dug out a nugget weighing twelve pounds that had been thrown out by the party who sunk that hole.

I mention this as it occurred while I was working on Break 0 Day gulley to illustrate how some of the early gold diggers threw away their gold. That nugget was probably thrown out while working after dark as many of the diggers did when on a rich lead of gold and both white men and Chinamen who came onto the old deserted gold fields have since reaped the benefit of the old gold diggers’ carelessness when the pudding machines came into use taking everything before them down to the bed rock.

The ground we were working was down the flat below where the lead had been and we found just about gold enough to live on and keep us buoyed up with the hope that we might strike gold in larger quantity, for the gold we were getting was all rough, shotty gold and in that kind of digging a man could never tell when he was going to strike an extensive patch or a portion of the old lead, especially in a falt where the lead had been so well defined as Break O Day had been, only a short distance from where we were then working.

One Saturday I had gone to town to sell some gold and buy some tools we needed and other necessaries we wanted. I was in town at dark or near dark when the street lamps were being lit. I stood talking to a man at the Post Office door when the lamp lighter set his ladder to the lamp post, within a few feet of me as he lit the lamp I chanced to look up and who should I see for lamp-lighter, but Mr. Bradley, the ‘Tornado’s’ Second Mate. I spoke to him calling him by name. He recognized me all right and we had some little conversation, but as he had the streets to light up, he had not much time to say, but he gave me his address and asked me to call and see him, which I promised to do.

As we were only five miles from town to our workings, I went back to town the following day, for I felt a little curious to know how he got ashore and cut of his scrape. I had no trouble to find his house, a pleasant little cottage at the mouth of Iron Bark Gulley, a short distance from where High Street crosses the gulley. I knocked at the door and as the door opened I was confronted by another shipmate from the ‘Tornado’, in the form of the stewardess; Mr. Bradley rose up from the lounge he had been lying on, paper in hand and introduced me to his wife, Mrs. Bradley. After getting settled down and some conversation on local topics, we got to talking about the ‘Tornado’, and from him I learned not only how he got ashore, but also all that occurred in connection with the ‘Tornado’ from the day he left her up to the date of her leaving Callao, to which place she went from Melbourne.

The night we came to anchor off Sandridge, the Captain sent for him, before he himself went ashore, and told him to get ashore and get away from the ship that night and to meet him at the Consul’s Office next day, and that between twelve and one o’clock that night, the Third Mate and Boatswain lowered the gig and put him ashore at Sandridge pier. Next day the Captain paid him all that was due him and he then went to a private boarding house and kept himself out of sight, to wait until the stewardess could get her affairs in the cabin arranged, when he would pay her off also.

They, it seemed had been sparking all the passage and were engaged to be married, but for that affair at the quarantine station they would have both gone back in the ship and not have been married until the ‘Tornado’ completed her voyage. I now found out that Mrs. Bradley was sister to Mrs. McGuiness, making the Second and Third mates brothers-in-law.

About the time I went in the ‘Reindeer’, the prisoners on board the ship were brought before the Consul, in the ‘Tornado’s’ cabin, on the charge of mutiny. They were charged with attempting to burn the ship at sea, and the Consul ordered them to be taken to the United States for trial, not a word about the shooting of the two men at the commencement of the voyage. The action had been resolved on from the time of the shooting, to make prisoners of some men as ringleaders of a mutiny, to keep any one from making a charge against the Mate and keep his crime in the back ground, until the ship could get unloaded and get away.

He also told me that there was one man in the forecastle who carried every word that was spoken in the forecastle against the officers and the log that was kept on the forecastle was taken in to the cabin every night for the Captain to read, so everything that was said or done in the forecastle was known in the cabin. It was the intention of the Captain to have kept the men in irons on board the vessel until she was ready for sea, but some idea of the true state of affairs having got to the authorities, there had been more inquiry made into the case and the men taken ashore to the jail at Williamstown and a new trial called for.

In the meantime, the man whom Bradley himself had hurt had so far recovered as to be entirely out of danger and walking about the deck; he was taken ashore and ten sovereigns given him and told to come back on board when he got ready and felt like work; that was the last day they saw Erickson.

The work of unloading the ‘Tornado’ had been hurried along with the greatest dispatch, and by the time she was unloaded she was also ballasted and ready for sea. As soon as the last pound of cargo was out of her and a few more lighter sand ballasts put in her, she was ready, and before the day appointed for the new trial of the Mutineers, as they were called, came round, the ‘Tornado’ had cleared and gone for Callao in ballast, and when the day of trial came, there was no one to prosecute them so the Consul allowed the matter to drop, and they were set at liberty.

Captain Munford had paid the stewardess as he had agreed to do, and she became Mrs. Bradley; they remained in Melbourne in the private boarding house, where he had lived since coming ashore, not going much in public for fear of being recognized by some one until the ‘Tornado’ went to sea. After she was gone, as he and his wife had determined to remain in the Colonies, they left the city and took the stage first for the little township of Kynetown, not having a definite object in view and not finding any work to suit him, he had finally got employment at the Iron Bark Gold Mining Company, Bendigo. He had worked there until about a month before I met him.

He had been a successful bidder for the contract for lighting the public lamps, he was making better wages than he received from the Gold Mining Company, and was making a good comfortable living – had bought and paid for the house he lived in and was contented. He said he felt no inclination for going to sea again at that time, but could not say what he might have to do. He had told me that I was the first and only one he had spoken to that came out in the ‘Tornado’ since he came ashore, with the exception of his wife and Captain Munford. So long as the Tornado was in bay, McGuiness had kept him posted as to how events were moving on the vessel, and afterwards he had learned the rest from the Melbourne papers. I asked him why he let his temper run away with his better judgement, at the quarantine station where he struck the Swede, being away from the vessel I could speak to him with greater freedom than I could have done there, I told him I felt disappointed in him that day and that I had had more respect for him as an officer, than I had for any other man on board of her. I then told him that I was in the sail room when the old Man came down into the mess room, and heard all that passed.

He admitted that he felt sorry for what he had done as soon as the blow was struck, and that the man he struck was not the man he was riled up at, but Erickson giving him some kind of reply to what he said to the Swede, that sort of turned his wrath on him, but the Boatswain and he had a quarrel about the taking in of the boat, and his spite had found vent on the poor Swede. I stayed and ate dinner with them that Sunday, and spent many Sundays with them after that. One Sunday some three or four weeks after first visiting them, Bradley told me they had received a letter from his wife’s sister in Liverpool, Mrs. McGuiness, telling of the death of her husband at Calloa.

Captain Mumford had written her from that place telling her that the nine men who had been left in jail at Melbourne, on being set at liberty had shipped in other vessels bound to Calloa, arriving, some of them, before the ‘Tornado’, the others soon after, the whole of the nine men having sworn to follow the ‘Tornado’ until they got even with some of her officers; and that the first one to come ashore was Mr. McGuiness, they had tackled him on the mole after landing, and after almost killing him, had thrown him off the mole into the water where he drowned. She did not know the names of all those who were arrested for the crime, but Alick Stewart was one of them. The ‘Tornado’ left for the Chincha Islands to load guano for Hampton Roads.

I remained working in the different gullies and flats in the neighborhood of Bendigo, or Sandhurst, as that place was beginning to be called, until after Christmas holidays. We had indifferent success, not getting rich very fast, but making fair wages; but my mate to whom I was related by ties nearer than I care to speak of here, had taken to drinking heavily and I concluded to go to sea again, and with this object in view, started for Melbourne.

On reaching the old hotel known as the ‘Diggers’ Rest’, I found a small town starting and the railroad that was in course of construction; the road had been surveyed through to Echuca on the Murray river, and work was now going on actively along the line from Sandhurst to Sunbury, the present terminus, the new name given to the railroad station at what had always been known as the ‘Diggers’ Rest’ on the old road to Bendigo. I remained here over night and took the first train for Melbourne.