May 24th, 1776
I begin with a departure: This day our fleet set off for Chesapeake Bay.
For months, I have not writ, having no paper upon which to write and no matter to record; our days passing in the tedium of routine, the languor of inactivity, and the terrors of disease. We have encamped upon the shore; abandoned our encampments; and now we have set off, at last, from the ruins of Norfolk.
Thus I begin my record once more, in hopes of more felicitous issue.
Paper hath been more than scarce; it is an article impossible to come by. The paper I now write upon was purchased for me by the most generous of friends, Pomp, Slant, and Olakunde, in return for my lessons in reading and writing. It is a fine bundle of black-edged mourning-paper, purchased of a serving-man upon one of the pleasure ships. It belonged, I am told, to a gentleman whose wife died of the smallpox three weeks ago; he himself succumbed but four days past, joining his spouse before ever he could write of her death to kinsman or friend; and his servant dispensed with all of his property in a phrenzy before we sailed, this envelope of mourning-paper among the rest.
I trust the black border on the page will not prove prophetic.
In these last days, the rebel hath gathered in greater numbers on the shores, emboldened, threatening some insolent move; and so we turn our backs on the Elizabeth River and now Hampton Roads; we leave behind us the melancholy ruins of Norfolk, that scene of desolation: a black labyrinth of cellar-holes and chimney-stacks, rebel pickets smoking in the sockets of meeting-houses.
There has been a word abroad that the rebels have seized upon cannons and dragged them into position at the mouth of the Elizabeth River, which circumstance would have trapped us there had we not quit the place. For the last week, we have seen murderous detachments parading on the shores. Great numbers of militia met together in full sight of our encampments and fleet, that they might spy upon us and confer.
Thus, we seek a new harbor, and a new encampment.
The final departure, two days ago, was a scene of stupendous activity — fully a hundred ships in motion. Though we who are held below could catch but glimpses of the active fleet when called above, even these brief prospects of activity thrilled the blood: warships and their tenders coming about; the schooners of wealth and ton, their masters arrayed in greatcoats on their decks, their ladies in silk flying-gowns witnessing the rise and snap of canvas; the herring buss in which some have been confined in utmost wretchedness for a space of months — tradesmen and journeymen and their prentices — rejoicing at the vast progress of sail.
I delight in our motion, though it be flight. We have been for months constrained in scenes of prodigious sickness and desolation; we cannot but feel gratitude that we exchange these sad prospects for new views. The refreshment of alteration is welcome after the staleness of inactivity. Flight is change, and change is pleasurable when fortunes are low.
Our Company are confined below for the voyage, and we can gain no certain intelligence of our destination. Lord Dunmore and his advisors must have seized upon a new place suitable to our purposes — hovered (as I envision them) over a map, debating our Fate, descrying new stratagems; and I pray that their deliberations were touched by a happier notion than those which have guided us for these five months past, which seem to my imperfect understanding merely a galling trial of hesitation and thwarted opportunity.
The motion of the ship is mysterious. We know not what river, what bay, what shore awaits us, and we little care, so it is a place where we may rally and fight.
Neither we nor the ship’s crew have received any rations this day, there being some late dispute with the victualers. Hunger is general. Slant chanced upon the sailing master’s mate cradling Vishnoo in his arms and rocking him, singing, “I’ll eat you, my sweet, from calipash to calipee”; to which the other sailors replied with coarse laughter and cheers, as the tortoise’s bewizened head cocked from one side to the other to compensate for the swing.
Slant is greatly distressed by this terrible lullaby; and protested to Olakunde, Pomp, and me, “Maybe he live for one hundred years. They can’t go eat him. Another thing can’t die. Not one more thing.”
Said Pomp, “Vishnoo’s the one body on this ship don’t deserve to get in a soup.”