Rosalie Hart Priour Autobiography "Adventures of a Family of Emigrants" with notes and commentary by historian Frank Wagner (indicated in green).
Chapter 9 We started early in the spring of the year 1834, and were accompanied by our relations and a crowd of the neighbors as far as Wexford, where we embarked for Liverpool.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - An earlier attempt by Power to leave in December, 1833, was aborted by bad weather in the Bay of Biscay. The ship returned to port, no doubt at considerable cost. Rosalie's response to interrogatories before Judge Crisp notes "After waiting some time at Liverpool for our ship to start for America and after spending Christmas in Liverpool, we embarked upon the ship and started for America shortly after Christmas of the year 1833 or in the early part of 1834." Further she remarks, "Mr. Power was to charter the ship and land us at Copano, Texas, for a certain sum of money (amount not remembered) payable in Liverpool before we would embark. My father paid him the money and got his receipt for same the day before we embarked." Later, "My father had a written contract with Mr. Power, written on the back of my mother's marriage certificate, stipulating the terms upon which he should be landed in the new colony in America, which writing acknowledged full payment for the passage of my father's family from Liverpool to Copano, Texas. This additional sum my mother refused to pay and produced from her pocket, where she always carried it, her marriage certificate containing on the back of it the original contract between my father and Mr. Power for transportation to America. I have heard my parents say that Mr. Power made the same demand at New Orleans upon all the colonists for an additional payment of passage money to bring them from New Orleans to Texas and that some of the colonists acceded to Mr. Power's demand but others did not." It is likely that the additional expense of the abortive voyage after Christmas, 1833, gave Col. Power partial reason and justification for demanding more payment. Additionally, when the ship arrived in New Orleans he learned that it could not negotiate the bar at Aransas, hence the colonists would necessarily be moved into lighter vessels. In the absence of a written contract, Power's demand would be difficult to contest.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - We remained there for two weeks visiting our relatives, and seeing everything worth seeing. I did not like the looks of the place and was glad when we left. I was even when a child a worshiper of nature in her wildest form and to be shut up in a large city was insupportable to me.
At the expiration of two weeks [11 March, 1834] our emigrants embarked for New Orleans. The ship [Heroine, Captain Russel] being too large to go to any of the Texas ports, we were compelled to land there and charter two smaller vessels to take us to our place of destination. Before starting from Liverpool, everyone was in a hurry going from store to store buying such things as would be required for the use of those who would have to endure the worst of all sickness "le mal de mer." Everything went on pleasantly until we entered the Bay of Biscay, there even at the best of time it is very rough. But we had the misfortune to encounter a storm. One by one, the passengers were compelled to go to their berths, and before long even the sailors could not walk the deck. When I saw no one was able to watch me, and that the captain ordered the hatches closed, I noticed one of the hatches (I think the sailors call them) fastened down to the deck, it was made something in the shape of a square frame with a hole in the back and the front of the frame fastened to the deck. I knew no one would notice me there, as I was determined not to go into the cabin during the storm I go in there. I barely had room to move about in my narrow quarters but I had gained my point. I could sit there and watch the play of the elements in all their grand display, and the waves dashing over the ship as if the angry waters would swallow everything that came in their way. I was in my element -- I knew no fear. I was young and innocent, and when spoken to about death, I always answered, "We have to die once and we may as well die now as at any other time. God can protect us from danger if it is His Will to do so, if not, it is our place to submit."
After the storm had spent itself, and the sea became calm, the sailors began to walk about with safety. Father tried to make the passengers as comfortable as he could. He was the only one of them able to walk, and during the storm he and the Capt. were the only ones able to walk without support so that the safety of the ship depended on their coolness and bravery.
Among the passengers was a family named Burns. They had one little boy of a very friendly disposition, and was very witty. The Captain took a great fancy to him, and he would keep him and my sister [Elisabeth] with him on deck all day. When an order was to be given, he would take them and make them speak the order after him, as both of the children were too young to pronounce the words correctly it caused a great deal of merriment.
Every day at 11 o'clock, he would order a waiter [a small tray] full of raisins, almonds, cake and other things to be brought on deck and tell sister Elisabeth and Peter Burns to invite the other children to their party. He always made them play host and hostess to the other guests. Everything went on splendidly and nothing occurred to disturb the equanimity of the passengers for about six weeks.
We were then in a place frequented by pirates. One day, the Captain saw a sail, a mere speck on the horizon at first, but finally growing larger and larger, and at last the hull of the vessel was seen through the glass. For two days, the glass was kept in constant use, and the vessel remained about the same distance from us. At last, the stranger approached, and the Captain ordered the women and children down to the cabin and the men to defend the ship if possible.
A very funny incident occurred while the men were preparing for action. A man slipped away form the rest, and made his wife and daughter hide him between two feather beds. The poor fellow was so badly frightened he forgot that if the pirates conquered us, every on of us would be put to death, and the ship sunk so that it was useless to hide. When the two ships were close enough together to speak through trumpets, they were brought in to requisition (sic) and the both found out that it was two merchant men going in different directions, but as each one had taken the other for a pirate, they had been tacking about for forty-eight hours and each afraid to advance towards the other, and when everything was explained, the deserter was found, and served as a source of amusement during the rest of the voyage.
The Captain was afraid to pass through the Florida straits as he was not acquainted with the American coast, and we had to make the tour of the island of Cuba while we were going around it.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Master of a British merchantman is not likely to have seriously feared getting through the Florida Straits, though the East to West passage was troublesome owing to the prevailing winds and currents. Instead of tacking an overburdened ship, circling round Cuba might have been chosen, or concern about pirates may have determined the longer route.
Ann Raney Coleman's journal records capture of a vessel by pirates in the Gulf of Mexico. On April 22, 1832, St. George was taken and looted by the pirates. In real life, they were less bloodthirsty than the passengers anticipations had imagined. chronometers and provisions were their chief requirements. Led by a captain who "looked English", they were awaiting another ship loaded with coin and other valuable goods. Ann Raney Coleman and the other passengers were released, deeply frightened but unharmed. (C. Richard King, ed., Victorian Lady on the Texas Frontier: The Journal of Ann Raney Coleman, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1971, pp. 7-12.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - We could not keep Elisabeth from going on deck in the middle of the day. She said she had to be there to give orders, that the Captain could not do without her. One day, while on deck, she was sunstruck and after lingering two days in the most dreadful suffering her spirit took its flight to join her angel sisters in heaven.
The Captain [Russell] mourned for her as if she were his own child. He would sit by her an hour at a time without moving. He would get a comb and curl her hair, and talk to her as if she could understand him. He wanted to take her to New Orleans for internment, but we were becalmed, and the porpoises followed the vessel in such numbers, the sailors told him he would have to bury her at sea, or we would never arrive at port so long as a corpse was on board. To please them, she had to be sewn in some new canvas with weights to sink her, and with love and sorrow lowered to her last home on earth [7 May, 1834]
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