Tag Archives: Sarah Buchanan

The Journal of Hugh Campbell, Part III: Stuck in Ireland…maybe

Will Hugh be forced to return to Augh­a­lane with his tail between his legs, or will he catch anoth­er ship head­ed to Amer­i­ca?  Let’s find out…   (If you missed Part II, read it here.)

13th June

In the course of the pre­ced­ing 30 hours I had walked upwards of 60 miles with­out either eat­ing or drink­ing or sleep­ing any­thing of con­se­quence.  With­out rest­ing I then got into an open boat where I had suf­fered much from the rain, cold and sick­ness.  When I reflect­ed that I had now lost my pas­sage — that my clothes, mon­ey and pro­vi­sions were on board and that I was left in a strange part of the coun­try with­out the means of car­ry­ing me home again — my state of mind can be bet­ter con­ceived than described.

Cap­tain Moses Gale’s ship, the “Phoenix.”

When day­light appeared, we put off from the Island and arrived at Culdaff in morn­ing.  As soon as my wor­thy and good-natured friend, Mrs. McCaus­land got my clothes washed and dried, Mr. Young gave me a horse to ride up to Der­ry (a dis­tance of about 18 miles) and a ser­vant to bring him back.  I took an affec­tion­ate farewell of my acquain­tances and set off from this cursed place for Lon­don­der­ry.  My very unex­pect­ed return sur­prised my friends great­ly and my mis­for­tune affect­ed them exceed­ing­ly.  The first step I took was to apply to Mr. Geo. Buchanan* for a pas­sage in the ship Phoenix bound for New York and to sail in a few days.  Both ves­sels [the Per­se­ver­ance and the Phoenix] were con­signed to him and I expect­ed by some means to induce him to allow me pas­sage in her that I might have an oppor­tu­ni­ty of recov­er­ing the arti­cles I owned in the Per­se­ver­ance.

He assured me that the lim­it­ed num­ber of pas­sen­gers were then in town, and that it was out of his pow­er to give me an extra pas­sage as it would undoubt­ed­ly for­feit the ves­sel if known.  Notwith­stand­ing this dis­cour­ag­ing reply, I was resolved not to return home with­out accom­plish­ing the object I set out on, should the con­se­quence be as it may.  I slept this night and the suc­ceed­ing ones at Mr. Cal­houn’s.  The kind atten­tion of whose fam­i­ly con­tributed mate­ri­al­ly to alle­vi­ate my dis­tress.  In this state of uncer­tain­ty I remained until the

15th

Mr. Cald­well (clerk to Mr. Buchanan) intro­duced me to Capt. Moses Gale, Com­man­der of the ship Phoenix and rec­om­mend­ed me to him in terms I shall nev­er for­get.  After relat­ing my unfor­tu­nate sit­u­a­tion to this Gen­tle­man he told me that the quo­ta of pas­sen­gers which the law allowed were on board but that he pitied the state the treach­ery of Capt. Elkins had left me in, and that at all haz­ards he would take me along.  I dined this very day on board with him.  After intro­duc­ing me to his two mates he assured me that “he would take me along in spite of all their Damned laws and stow me away in the Bal­last where the Dev­il him­self could not find me.”  This dec­la­ra­tion from a Gen­tle­man on so slight an acquain­tance made the impres­sions that its frank­ness deserved from me.

*****

* All of the Buchanans men­tioned in this jour­nal are relat­ed to Hugh; his moth­er was Sarah Buchanan Camp­bell.  Hugh is also a dis­tant rel­a­tive of 15th U.S. Pres­i­dent James Buchanan.

Next week: The Voy­age Begins