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White Wings Vol I. Fifty Years Of Sail In The New Zealand Trade, 1850 TO 1900

The Anne Longton

page 356

The Anne Longton.

A somewhat sensational passage was one that was made by the 690 ton ship Anne Longton in 1857. The ship had over eighty passengers for Auckland and six for New Plymouth, and among the former were Mr. Whitson, a name afterwards well known in brewing business in Auckland; and Mr. Samuel Luke, for many years a member of the Auckland Education Board. Mr. J. H. Hudson, of Whitianga, has sent me some interesting particulars of this remarkable passage from a journal kept by Mr. Josiah Hill Hudson, who was one of the pioneer settlers of Stream-lands. When the ship arrived in Auckland the police flag was flying and 12 of the crew were taken into custody upon the information of the master, Captain Kirby, who seems to have been a bit of a martinet. Six of the men were charged at the Police Court with having refused to clean the passengers' deck when ordered to do so, but their counsel (Mr. Brookfield) objected that under the Passenger Act the passengers were supposed to clean their own deck. Another charge was that the men refused to send up the passengers' luggage from the hold and restow it. Counsel compained that the captain had been tyrannical and had refused to lower a boat to allow some of the crew to go to another ship to get some tobacco, of which a sufficient quantity had not been shipped. The men were all found guilty of refusing duty and received sentences ranging up to ten weeks.

Concerning the trouble, Mr. Hudson wrote: "Early in the voyage, it became common knowledge on board that the owners had shipped only four pounds of tobacco for the use of the crew; presumably to avoid some expense in London and in the hope of picking up some tobacco-laden American vessel in the Channel. The crew refused duty off the Isle of Wight unless supplies were forthcoming. The captain put their spokesman in irons; and assembling the passengers aft asked for volunteers to work the ship. Plenty of the younger men were willing—among them the young Hudsons, who turned-to, to learn to splice, steer, and reef. The next day the captain spoke a ship, sent a boat aboard, and obtained a small supply of tobacco, and the crew turned-to. But this occurred twice during the run down the Atlantic; and the vessel was illfound in many particulars. The last mutiny was off the Brazilian coast, and the captain vowed to carry the ship into Rio, where "Yellow Jack" was known to be raging, to get sufficient tobacco; and laid a course accordingly. But in the next watch they obtained from another passing ship an adequate supply to ration the ship with tobacco till off the New Zealand coast."