As the luggage was hauled aboard, he led the passengers down below into the main saloon area. He advised them to hold on to the brass handrail and watch their step as they descended the steep stairs. Morgan watched as his guests’ eyes nervously scanned their new surroundings. He stood at one end of the large dining table and looked toward his passengers, who were scattered around the area.
“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the New York packet ship Philadelphia, which I dare say is one of the finest and fastest ships to sail the Atlantic.”
The men and women turned toward the captain.
“Some of those harbor reporters back in New York are calling new ships like this one floating palaces. The main cabins have been finished with a mixture of bird’s-eye maple, satinwood, rosewood, and mahogany. As you can see from the fine carpets on the floor, there is every comfort. In the adjoining dining room, the ladies have their own sitting area with a piano.”
This remark produced the desired murmurs of appreciation as the entire group looked over at the adjacent lounge with its blue silk curtains, two small sofas, a cherrywood piano, and walls painted with pastoral scenes. Morgan noticed that the young woman with the amber eyes had walked over to the piano with its finely tapered legs and was gently touching the keys.
“Gentlemen, I’m afraid, are not allowed in this room unless invited by a lady, of course.”
This brought forth some reserved laughter from the ladies and a few coughs and some cantankerous muttering from the men.
“The steward here, Mr. Caiphus Lowery, will show you the various staterooms. We have twelve separate suites on board, each with two stacked berths. As you can see, they offer abundant room for all purposes of toilet.”
Morgan could hear the clucking behind the varnished latticed doors as the group commented on the small windows, the tiny, standing washbasin, the cramped berths too short for most tall men, all in an eight-by-eight-foot space.
“Captain, how will we bathe?” asked one older woman plaintively. “I see no bathtub in my stateroom?”
“The steward will see to that, ma’am,” Morgan replied in the most courteous tone he could summon. “He will draw up a bucket or two of seawater every morning for you and place it in a small tub.”
Astonishment, then silence, greeted this grim description.
After an hour of letting his cabin passengers get settled, Morgan was back on deck giving orders. He could see the steerage passengers all on deck anxiously gazing back at the shore. On this trip, they had loaded eighty emigrants. They were a mixture of country English, wild-eyed Irishmen, red-bearded Scots, and crusty quarrymen from Wales. There were a few single women, but most were married with small children clutching to their dresses. Morgan was still under instructions from Mr. Griswold to take on steerage passengers only as a last resort. The shipping line could make more money carrying fine freight like Yorkshire woolens, Lancashire linens, and Sheffield cutlery in the upper hold. Still, the London shipping agents were always looking for more ships to take across the steady stream of emigrants, and the packets increasingly were adjusting their fares to make it worthwhile.
“Mr. Nyles, back the jibs.”
“Backing the jibs to starboard, Captain.”
“Break out the anchor.”
The massive anchor came tumbling up from the sea like a huge fish. In an instant, the sailors on the foredeck released the starboard sheets and simultaneously pulled in the sheets on the port side. The men high up in the yards, who were tending the sheets and the braces, trimmed the large square sails to make them work in conjunction with the jibs. On deck, the sailors tending the lines began to sing a departure chantey:
Yes we’re homeward bound to New York town
With a heave oh haul.
And it’s there we’ll sing and sorrow drown
Good Morning ladies all.
Anchor up, Captain, ship’s aweigh.
The Philadelphia shuddered as the power of the wind took her off with a sudden surge, the hull heeling to port as the big sails in the center of the boat filled out.
“Keep her sails full and drawing, Mr. Nyles.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
Even before the ship had reached Land’s End a day later with the cliffs of the Lizard and the Eddystone Rocks safely behind them, Morgan could see trouble was brewing. His old veteran sailors were on edge. Whipple and the Spaniard both approached him and told him that the new crewmembers were not fitting in well. There was mutiny in the air, they said. He could hear the roar of the surf now crashing on the craggy ramparts of the southwestern tip of England. As they said farewell to the Scilly Islands, one of the more brutish-looking sailors with an oxlike neck refused to go up into the yards. Morgan had to send Icelander and Mr. Nyles up to the foredeck armed with belaying pins to make the man obey. He wished Hiram was still sailing with him. His old friend could always sniff out any trouble brewing on the foredeck. He swallowed hard as he thought about him. He wished he’d never gone into that tavern. Hiram might still be sailing with him now if it weren’t for that fateful decision he’d made.