Mimosa was a last resort. The Halton Castle, better equipped to carry passengers, was to have sailed with the emigrants in April. But, due to some mishap or miscalculation, she was still on the high seas by the beginning of May. Two men, Lewis Jones and Edwyn Berwyn, were already in Patagonia making preparations. Mimosa was not ideal, but she was better than nothing.
Planks were nailed to the walls of the hold to separate the men's sleeping quarters from the women's. Tables, benches and storage boxes were made, and a makeshift ladder was erected to enable the passengers to climb up to the deck. Perhaps on the insistence of the Non-Conformist Welsh minister, Michael D. Jones, or of his wife, who was financing the venture, the female figurehead (Was it bare breasted with long hair streaming wantonly in stylized eroticism'?) was removed and replaced by a simple scroll.
The cost of fitting, provisioning and chartering Mimosa was 2,500 pounds sterling. The fare for adults was twelve pounds, six for children, although inability to pay was not a barrier and anyone willing to go was accepted. No one knew how long the voyage would take, and provisions sufficient for a six-month voyage were supplied.
Because Mimosa was carrying passengers, her captain, George Pepperell, took on a crew of 18 which was a larger one than than needed for carrying only cargo. Most of the crew were the dregs of Liverpool. Two of the seamen were from a Swedish ship and one was from a Portuguese one, thereby adding further to the linguistic differences on board.
Upon discovering that his passengers were almost all unilingually Welsh speaking, Captain Pepperell signed on a young Welshman from Merioneth called Richard Berwyn (who became the first schoolteacher of the colony) as purser. Because, by law, a doctor was required for any ship carrying more than fifty passengers, a twenty one year old doctor from Ireland called Thomas Greene, who had completed his medical studies in April and who was looking for a medical position overseas, was signed on as ship's surgeon. Robert Nagle, the son of a Custom's superintendent in Barmouth, West Wales, was signed on as an Able Bodied Seaman to replace a crewman who deserted before the ship weighed anchor. The wage for all three was a shilling a month.
The 153 passengers came from all
parts of North and South Wales, many of them following their preacher (there
were three), and most had never travelled beyond their villages. There were
56 married adults, 33 single or widowed men and 12 single women who were
either sisters of married passengers or servants, and the remainder were
children or babies.
At 10 o'clock on the morning of Thursday, May 25, Mimosa was towed
from the Clarence Craving Dock into the vast basin of the Victoria Dock; and
on the Sunday a pilot guided her down the Mersey toward the open sea. As her
acres of sails filled out in the wind and headed into St. George's Channel
none could have known that Mimosa was sailing into history, and that
her name was to become synonymous with the hopes and dreams, the hardships
and disillusionments and the eventual triumphs of the passengers she
carried.
Relationships between Captain Pepperell and his passengers were uncordial
and worsened as the journey progressed. Clipper captains were not renowned
for their good temper in an age when flogging crew was normal. He had a
large crew to contend with, only one of whom he had sailed with before, and
with women and children on board (not to mention three preachers!), the
drinking and bad language had to he curtailed, further shortening tempers.
Added to that was the anxiety of sailing to a destination unknown to him.
The animosity between the captain and his passengers reached its peak when, half way through the voyage, Pepperell decided that in the interest of hygiene all the women should have their hair cut short. After vociferous protestation from the passengers, especially from the enraged father of the terrified teenage girl who had been seized by one of the crew to be shorn, Pepperell fired a pistol in the air to emphasize his authority, and grudgingly conceded that the women might keep their hair if he and the doctor inspected their heads daily. After the incident he forbade the passengers further access to the first deck, thereby making the cramped conditions even worse.
At a Brazilian port where they
stopped to replenish provisions, Pepperell, weary of the voyage, endeavoured
to persuade the passengers to disembark to join a colony already established
in Brazil. The idea was not even considered. As Mimosa sailed further
south, they encountered the cold of the South Atlantic. On clear days
columns of vapour could be seen far out to sea. The thought of steamships
sailing so far south was a comfort to the passengers that their destination
was not as isolated as they had been led to believe. It was the mate who
realized that the "smoke" was not from steamships, but from whales.
Finally, just before dawn on Thursday, July 27, Mimosa sailed into a
natural harbour, a semi-circle of rocks, some 8 miles wide and 22 miles in
length, and dropped anchor. Sleep was impossible, and most of the
passengers, dressed in their Sunday best, were up at 4am, pacing the deck in
their desire to sight the land where most would spend the remainder of their
lives. The sun rose, and they awaited some sign that their arrival had been
seen. At last, at about one o'clock in the afternoon, a gunshot from shore
shattered the silence, and by late afternoon Lewis Jones and Edwyn Roberts
rowed out to where Mimosa was anchored and came on board.
Disembarcation took more than a day,
as the passengers had to be rowed the 20-odd miles into shore along with
their possessions which included farm implements and pieces of furniture.
The ship's cook Amos Williams from Caernarvon - evidently deciding that the
uncertainty of what lay ahead for his countrymen was preferable to the
certainty of what lay ahead on Mimosa, elected to remain with the colony.
(Thomas Greene remained with the colony until the end of the year.)
Finally, the next
day (a date that is celebrated every year in Wales and Patagonia as Glyn y
Glaniad) all gathered on the beach. A short sermon of thanks was held, the
child who had died the day before was buried, and the place where they stood
was named Port Madryn after Madryn Castle on the windswept Llyn Peninsular
in North Wales.
Little is known
of Mimosa
after her voyage
to Patagonia except that in the following year the entire crew mutinied
over short rations and Pepperell was incarcerated on board. Some of the
Liverpool merchants who had- shares in her became bankrupt or died, and
their shares were bought by others.
What became of her is not known. Perhaps she followed the fate of other
once-proud clippers and became a freighter tramping from port to port in
search of any cargo she could get. Perhaps she was pounded to pieces on
some reef or went down with all hands in a storm. Or perhaps she suffered
the ultimate humiliation for .a clipper of being dismasted and used as a
coating barge for the smoke-belching steamships that replaced sail.
Even the painting of her executed in her sailing prime outside Sydney
Harbour has disappeared. Having been exhibited in the Parker Gallery in
Pimlico, London, some years ago, it was bought by a collector living on
the Isle of Wight. Upon his death, the painting again changed hands, and
to date has not been traced.
Whatever
Mimosa's
demise, her name lives on, inseparable from those of the only passengers
she is known to have carried.
Other articles on similar topics:
- Immigration policy & settlement: The example of Britain & late 19th century Argentina
- Welsh immigrants in Patagonia: Mimosa, the old ship that sailed into history
- Welsh settlers to Argentina: Gaiman, an unforgettable people
- Irish immigration to Argentina: Land, lambs, churches
- A different kind of multinational: Immigrants to Argentina from Eastern Europe
-
El Anglo and Fray Bentos
- The British: End of Empire in the Slaughterhouse: Fábrica Colόn & Corned Beef
- The British and the Argentine beef trade
- The British and the Argentine railways
- The British in Argentina: End of empire, la Forestal
