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8 Jun 57 John On 'Lord Raglan' Mother ______________________________________________________________________________________________

At sea – on board

Lord Raglan

June 8^th 1857

My dear Mother

I do not know how this letter is to go, but even the fact of writing it seems to me as if I were conversing with you, altho’ no doubt it will be months before this comes to your hands.

We have now been sixteen days at sea and are just about the latitude of Lisbon. A good promise that for a short voyage which of course (according to the Captain) we were to make.

I may as well take up my story from the time that I last wrote from Dublin.

We sent down our heavy baggage to be embarked on the 22^nd May and were to parade at 7 o’clock on the morning of the 23^rd to march to the Kingstown railway station, to go the seven miles by railway & then to march on board. I told my servant to call me at half past four & gave him some money to get me several little things which I had left to the last. He got the things for me & left them in my room but was off himself & did not return, so at half past six in the morning I was still asleep when my serjeant came to knock me up as he required some money for the men and some orders as to how some returned deserters were to be disposed of.

Some of my company who had deserted came back again that they might embark with the regiment. I turned out & sent over to the Company for a man to help me to pack up, having only half an hour to dress & pack up everything & with a man who did not know my ways. I imagine I left a great many thing behind & only just at the last moment recollected my desk with about £25 of company money. At last however I got everything down quite safe & at seven o’clock we paraded. On our way out of the Royal Barracks we were inspected by Lord Seaton, the General commanding in Ireland & he said that he never saw a finer regiment leave Dublin. I can answer for my own company that they were remarkably unsteady for they thought it right to have a stirrup cup before starting & I expect most of them had had a good many of those cups.

The drums & fifes of the Grenadier Guards and our own band marched us through the streets of Dublin – The girls we’ve left behind us – Auld Lang syne – Home sweet home (curiously enough) and many other airs rousing up the cits * of Dublin as we marched through the town in the early morning

The train was ready & we left Dublin at 9 o’clock, the drums of the Guards took up a position by where the head of the train had been & struck up ‘Pop goes the Weasel’ until the train, passing at gradually increasing speed, had carried off 910 people, the head quarters of the King’s Own Regiment.

We arrived at Kingstown in about a quarter of an hour and marched from the station to the quay, playing ‘Every land is now my home’. You see we always suit the music to the occasion. We had to wait about three hours on the quay before we embarked, during which time we had the pleasure of seeing several duns * looking out for their intended victims. I am glad to say that only in one instance were they successful & the demand was immediately met & settled.

We shook down into our places towards the end of the afternoon but the dinner that day made us all think that, if such was the beginning, what was the end likely to be & our alarm was increased by finding a placard stuck up in the cabins to the effect that we are allowed only half a bottle of wine and half a bottle of beer every day. Oh! for Huggin’s Hogshead! We objected to this because it had a stingy appearance about it but there was no help for it. It was too late. We told them that it was a false economy & that they were wrong in restricting us.

They thought they had made a good thing of it & hinted so. We told them they would find out their mistake & so it turns out now for we have all drank our wine as we wish & we are four dozen of wine in credit still. That is to say that we are entitled to four dozen more than we have drawn & this we mean to take out when we get into the tropics in the shape of claret for breakfast and dinner. This they would have saved, but for their own stinginess.

The cook bolted the day before we came on board & we came to sea without one & there was only the sailors’ cook on board. His knowledge extended to boiling meat & making very bad pea soup.

Latterly we have hunted up some old Crimean servants who are good cooks and as there is plenty of material we get pretty good dinners; but only, fancy – we have come to sea without any onions – & for going round the Cape in mid-winter, we have not a drop of whiskey. When we came to sea, nothing was ready. In fact, the ship put to sea a fortnight too soon. We are now, partly by bullying, partly by coaxing, getting the ship a little into order. The Captain is a good hearted man and anxious to please but has, I think, been placed in a most unfair position by his owners – Graves of Liverpool. Graves, altho’ not the owner, chartered the ship and made all the arrangements with government.

We left Kingstown about seven o’clock on Sunday morning in tow of a steam tug with a light head wind. We were towed until about seven the next morning when, the wind shifting round, we found the tug was no use to us & so cast it off, sending our last letters by it. About half past eight that morning with a fresh breeze the cry was raised ‘a man overboard’ & there was one of the sailors floating, or rather swimming, & soon left far astern. He had been working somewhere about the bowsprit & the ship dipping, caused him and another man to be washed away from his hold. The other man caught a rope and saved himself but this man was swept right away. As soon as we could, we ran the ship into the wind, so that all the sails were taken aback; lowered a boat & away it started with twelve men.

After half an hour’s rowing, they came up with the man who was just sinking. He had seen that we prepared to lower the boat & instead of exerting himself to reach the life buoy that was thrown to him, he paddled with his hands & kept himself above water until the boat reached him about two miles from the ship, when he sunk. But they caught him by the arms & pulled him into the boat & after pulling again for half an hour in rather a heavy sea, they reached the ship & slung him on board, when he was consigned to the Doctor who had him in his charge for three or four days. I shall never forget seeing the man throw up his arms & cry for help as he passed astern of the ship. This took about twenty miles off our day’s journey; what with shortening sail & making it up again.

It got more rough towards the afternoon, so as it was impossible to sit down on deck I went & lay in my cabin & while there half asleep I heard a great noise but did not care about going on deck. About an hour afterwards one of our officers named Constable, who is in the same cabin with me (for we are all two in a cabin except the Colonel & of course the married people who have cabins to themselves & their children) came down stairs and told me that one of our men had been washed overboard by a rope attached to one of the sails which was flapping about. He had his long great coat on at the time and as he passed astern of the ship cried out ‘I’m lost, I’m lost’ & then gave a dreadful cry & what the poor fellow said turned out to be quite true. Although the boat was lowered almost immediately – for the ship was going very fast & her way must be stopped before a boat can be safely lowered.

(Why will they not fit Clifford’s apparatus to all ships, by which a boat can be lowered from a vessel at full speed. If they had had it here, a life might have been saved.) But we were going very fast & could not stop the ship until he had passed a long way astern. A life buoy was thrown him at once but he did not appear to get hold of it & after looking for him for about an hour, the boat came back without him. Then came the question who was the man. Three or four names were mentioned & in these cases I think the wish was father to the thought, but these men all turned up & objected to being reported drowned, so the roll was called & there was no answer to the name of Bathe in the Light Company of the regiment: a very smart young fellow. So in orders that night ‘Pte Bathe, having been accidentally drowned, is struck off the strength of the regiment.’ Such is a soldier’s elegy. His kit is sold, his debts paid & the surplus transmitted to the secretary at war for his next of kin & he makes way for another. But we had as many in the ship that night as there were in the morning. My colour serjeant’s wife was confined & since then we have had three or four more children borne. Three altogether in my company, but one is since dead.

We had some very heavy weather. The wind changing during the night of the 25^th and from then until the 6^th June, we have been beating against a more or less strong head wind & head seas & what we were a fortnight doing, was done by this ship on her last voyage in three days. Poor Mrs Goringe, our new doctor’s wife, who had been suffering from fever before she came on board, got worse and worse & was very near death’s door from sea sickness when, fortunately, the wind changed & that brought instant relief & she is now looking up again. Mrs Martin is the best sailor, having only missed one dinner. For the first two or three days there was very spare attendance at table & a great many very miserable dogs lying all about the deck or sending below for a little brandy and water, or perhaps tea.

I have astonished myself, not having been in the least ill. All the time that I have been on board & could even face a soup tureen full of greasy soup, sitting every day either as carver, or next to him.

I have been trying to persuade the Captain to put into Madeira so that we may post our letters but he is not to be persuaded. The poor man is quite unhappy that he cannot make a good passage. The only consolation he has is that we have walked past every ship we have seen. The ‘Lord Raglan’ – or as we call her the ‘Old Raglan’ is certainly a splendid sailer & goes so easily through the water.

Such a contrast to the man of war we came home in from the Crimea, but then one is built for fighting & the other for sailing. That may make a difference.

Adieu for the present. I must not write too much at once. We are just meeting a ship & see that it is lowering a boat so we are all closing our letters.

June 16^th.

We are all well & getting on well now the wind has been with us for nine days. Love to my Father & all at home from

Yr affectionate Son

J Wimburn Laurie

Lat – 12 – N *

* cits - citizens

* duns – creditors looking for those owing them money

* Lat 12 N – that put him about the latitude of The Gambia