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20 Feb 62 John on board RMS Niagara Mother ______________________________________________________________________________________________

RMS Niagara

Thursday Feby. 20th - /62

My dear Mother

I had hoped before this to have written from Halifax but Cunard’s steamer, though it is – it is a slow coach. I really think that nothing of any importance or even worth mention occurred during our first week at sea.

We had the wind with us & ought to have made great running but the ship was so deeply laden that we could not go as we should have done. We had every sort of wind from light breeze to a heavy gale, but last Sunday the wind came round ahead & instead of our arriving on Wednesday as we had intended, we were yesterday a good deal more than 500 miles from Halifax & shall miss the mail which, coming from Boston leaves Halifax on Friday morning, whilst we cannot arrive until Saturday morning. So much for making the run in eight days – we shall have been 14.

This time of year is the worst that we could have chosen to cross the Atlantic. Since Sunday we have had a strong gale against us and have made scarcely any way so that we have been most thoroughly doomed to disappointment when we were almost counting on eating our dinners in (& writing by the mail from) Halifax on Wednesday at the latest.

We hope however that we may yet pass the mail steamer on her way out of Halifax & if she sees us, she will at least report passing us & that we are well on board. So much for our progress hitherto.

We made a fair start from Liverpool and got into Queenstown* about 3.30. I kept my letter unfinished in the hope that I might get one from you & might perhaps answer any thing requiring one. In the mean time the mail bag from the ship was sealed up & I was afraid I should have no chance of getting it posted. However a boat from one of the men of war came off with some message & I closed the letter & sent it off, unfinished as it was. This will probably explain what must at the time have puzzled you. Still, I thought that you would easily understand it even without an explanation.

I was disappointed at not getting a letter from you but I hear that unless specially sent in some peculiar way, letters are not forwarded to the ships on a Sunday. Hence the stoppage, so probably your letter has been returned to you before this from the dead letter office.

We got away from Queenstown soon after 4 on Sunday afternoon & saw our last of Ireland about 11 that night. We went capitally with a good deal of rolling for three or four days. This frightened the ladies & kept them away from the table. We had some eight or ten on board, most interesting specimens of the genus; some only shew at meals, some never shew at all. We have very little to say to any except those who sit at our table who are Mrs Langley, Cross and Sheet – all with husbands in the 16th Regt at Halifax and a Mrs Rickards, whose husband is an assistant surgeon in Newfoundland. Cols. Higginson & Hamilton of the Grenadier Guards, Major Daniell & self, with a business man from Sheffield named Charlton – a very nice fellow, clear headed and pleasant – and a couple of young Canadians with nothing particular in them; ditto a Yankee from Philadelphia who is almost always too sick to come to table, form our party.

The 16th ladies keep very much to themselves & leave the other – a lady married two days before her husband started, to herself. Consequently she comes more under the gentleman’s charge, but has nothing in her. The other ladies I thought at first were to be avoided, as I did not care about them at all. Consequently rather chaffed & bullied them, but I suppose time works wonders and probably the idea of meeting them very often in Halifax, as I have ceased to worry & frighten them.

Last Friday the 14th I kept my promise & opened Helen’s Valentine, and was very pleased with the idea, altho’ more serious than the generality of the 14th Feby. missives. I will do my best to return to you as soon as circumstances permit, but how long or how short may be my stay, I cannot yet at all form an opinion about.

Saturday 22nd.

Our promised quiet of last Thursday was rudely disturbed by the wind coming round right ahead and blowing a frightful gale from the NW. The wind howled over us that night, for a couple of hours as it were an express train passing over us. All yesterday it remained very strong and consequently there was no writing to be done. Today it has moderated & we are getting along a little better, but still are not at Halifax. We may get there tonight, perhaps tomorrow.

This is very slow & vexatious. Our Captain & most of the old hands say that they never had a worse passage across. This would have been cheering to us had we known we were to have this beforehand but now we have gone through the worst & whilst much admiring the strength of our boat which has enabled us to weather the frightful times we have had, we are indeed thankful it is over.

Last Sunday the wind turned against us & began to blow at night. The ladies began to run about asking if there were any danger. During the gale blowing with us a day or so before, one of our boats was carried away, the davit becoming unshipped & we were obliged to cut the boat away to prevent it knocking a hole in our side. We seem doomed to misfortune & our Captain vows he will never again take on board shipwrecked passengers from the ‘Adelaide’ at which Daniell & I chaff him & laugh more than ever.

About Monday last we got into frost as well as wind. The sea kept on washing over us and froze on board the whole of the bows were frozen over and it almost requires seeing to believe. The rigging was covered towards the wind with ice from the spray which accumulated on the side towards the wind to a thickness of more than six inches even on ropes no thicker than a man’s thumb. This occupied the whole crew in cleaning altho’ as fast as they cleared it, it accumulated again. We had several hundred tons of ice over the ship at once, all the frozen salt water, the temperature of air and of sea is about 26º – that is 4º below fresh water freezing point. Salt water freezes at about 28º, so we easily got our ice.

Table to be laid again. Letter writing on board requires the utmost perseverance. They are always laying the cloth & eating. I believe I do my share though.

Yet another start, now lunch is over. We have a beautiful afternoon. The sun shining brightly & scarcely any wind. The sea is almost like glass. The thermometer at 22º and yet we do not feel the cold. The whole of the passengers are keeping themselves warm on deck & thundering over our heads which does not make them any clearer for writing, so I suppose this will be in my usual style – rather disconnected. Our ideas get strangely jumbled up thanks to the motion of the ship & the excitement as each novelty turns up. But a few minutes ago I was called on deck to see the whales blowing. Land is soon expected to be in sight. The ladies going to join their husbands are in the wildest state of excitement & think their better halves must be in the same state. Perhaps so – but if so, tastes differ.

Col. Higginson is a capital caricaturist and we have all been the victims of his humorous pencil. I of course have had a large share of it especially as he knows I do not take offence, which others may do when broadly delineated. We have really had great fun considering how uncomfortable our passage has been. The chaff at our table has been fast & furious. I have earned the names of ‘horrid man’ & ‘unfeeling monster’ on account of my suggestions as to the disposal of the children & as promulgator of terrible reports. We certainly succeeded in frightening the ladies out of their few wits & richly they deserved it, considering their behaviour.

I will not spin a long yarn about our voyage as it has been very much the same as others & really, but for the good humour & anecdote at our table, I do not know how we should have struggled through the fortnight. We have been self sustaining & have accordingly kept ourselves alive. It is now a question of hours, and I am beginning to look forward anxiously for my impressions of my new home & what may be my employment & advantages there. Still wrapt up in self, yet I suppose in this case I am not altogether wrong.

I am going to send this letter on the ship to Boston in time to catch the New York steamer sailing on Wednesday, so that I shall have to leave it on board and shall not be able by this to give you my impressions of Halifax. I fear too that there will be no chance of writing again to catch any steamer for a fortnight – that is, the Wednesday following the one on which this letter leaves New York.

The mail for you to write by, for certain, for another month is the regular steamer leaving Liverpool for Halifax every alternate Saturday. The steamer sailing for Portland in winter from Liverpool every Thursday would also bring my letters but not so directly, and that goes up to Montreal in Summer & would therefore be quite out of the way after the middle of April. Then if you wished to write every week, you must do so via New York on the alternate Saturdays when Cunard does not run to Halifax.

I must really go on deck & enjoy the sun. He has not fanned us for a fortnight & the temptation is irresistible. I will finish this, this evening. By the bye, about postage. I am not going to stamp my letters for the present as I am told that unstamped letters are far more secure than stamped, as having got the money, they are not particular about forwarding it. Whilst as my Father would say ‘never pay until you get delivery’, is another matter. They are safe to be delivered.

I know that this appears rather one sided, asking you to pay your letters whilst I do not pay mine, but after all, letters are written to be received, not merely to satisfy ones conscience by being sent.

We have made the first light outside Halifax harbour and, having struggled through miles of field ice, crashing along, we are going full speed in comparatively open water at ¼ to 7 p.m. on Saturday. We shall be in in an hour and these letters will be posted here to leave the New York mail.

I would have written to Helen on her birthday but it was too rough to write & I have devoted all my spare time to this composition, but will try & give you some little description of this, to me, new country.

I hope to hear soon from you, good accounts of my Father’s health & your own & from the East.

My best love to you all & with good wishes, believe me ever

Your affectionate Son

J Wimburn Laurie

PS Just arrived about 9 p.m. - Goodbye

* Queenstown – Now Cobh, Co. Cork. In 1912, RMS Titanic’s final port of call