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"horror voyage on the ship "Accrington"
Investigations reveal that the "Accrington" once went on a vogage that went horribly wrong, when it was ferrying troops to India in 1859.
When it arrived there, 65 of the crew were dead, including the Captain and his first mate. A crew member, described as "a gentleman of colour", was later brought to trial in Southampton, but, although he apparently admitted giving poison to the captain and first mate, the magistrates ruled there was no case to answer to because of the officers' extreme cruelty on the voyage.
The accused man is believed to have killed the pair after 63 people had died on the passage to India, through the brutal regime imposed by the ship's master. The very cruel ways in which the captain and his chief mate had been towards both crew and passengers, had made them extremely unpopular. They used brute force and even the women on board did not escape violence at their hands. One morning, the steward, put a quantity of tartar emetic into some coffee.
"Both the captain and the mate died from the effects of the poison but the ship's surgeon, narrowly escaped with his life.
I never knew anything about this Tealeaf. See! You learn something every day.
June
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