Show Me the Sky - Nicholas Hogg [7]
Assisting the Rev. Lilywhite will be a Rev. Jefferson from Edinburgh, and for one year previous, of Botany Bay, New Holland, where he presided over a parish of indigenes and men in chains. Youngest of the clergy is the Rev. Stevens of Worcester, a man of jolly countenance and vigour, whom I am most looking forward to working with and learning from. All reverends are joined by their families, though the older children of Rev. Lilywhite will disembark in Portsmouth, where we will also welcome our final pilgrim of the South Pacific, a Rev. Thomas, whom I only know by name. If his character glows with God as that of his brethren, then the Lord has selected a fine charge of men to sally forth with his message.
22 September 1834
With his bible wagging in his right hand as he spoke, the Rev. Lilywhite launched the Caroline south on Matthew 28:19–20, so that all on-board can be sure that we voyage into the deep with God on our side: ‘Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded of you.’
The Rev. Lilywhite followed this with a prayer for calm seas and fair weather, and that ‘the God of Jonah be our God’. The Bishop of London, on-board for the farewell ceremony and officially representing King George, then added his blessings: ‘For those devoted to the work of preaching the Gospel of Christ to the poor and benighted inhabitants of those godless islands, know we pray here in England that the Lord sails with you.’
When the bishop and his entourage stepped off the gangplank, and the length of wood that joined us to dry land was raised, the Rev. Lilywhite turned and cried, ‘Onward Christian soldiers!’
Capt. Drinkwater ordered that the anchor be weighed, and as the Caroline slipped her moorings, the Rev. Jefferson and I hoisted the missionary flag – three silver doves on a purple field, bearing olive branches in their beaks – to the tip of the masthead. The wharf was a carnival of well-wishers, and it seemed every parish of London had come to Blackwall to wave us off, many joining the reverends, their wives, the captain and the crew, in singing the hymn ‘Jesus at thy command we launch into the deep’.
24 September 1834
Just after dawn the Caroline weighed anchor from Hope Point and made sail for Sheerness. Feeling for the first time a stiff wind, we merrily raced towards the mouth of the Thames and the North Sea, the riverbank rolling by as though it were the deck fixed and dear England sailing.
26 September 1834
This afternoon, standing on the prow watching the garden coast of Kent flare and shadow beneath the scattered clouds, I was taken aside by the Rev. Stevens and informed something of our final brethren, Rev. Thomas – due to join us in Portsmouth tomorrow. ‘He is the only one of us without kin,’ Rev. Stevens most earnestly remarked. ‘And despite my knowing that you are a man of most impeccable manner and etiquette, I feel it correct to warn you of enquiring about his family. Well, what was his family.’
The Rev. Stevens went on, in hushed and discreet tones, to tell me of how Mrs Thomas and their teenage daughter had been tragically robbed and shot by highwaymen earlier this year. On a trip to Exeter, while Rev. Thomas took relief in a dell, bandits assailed the carriage, murdering the coachman and his two passengers. Though the motive was presumed robbery, the killers had fled empty handed, leaving only the corpses of the coachman and the family Thomas.
Rev. Thomas was of course distraught, and public reaction to the murder of a minister’s family prompted officers from London to assist in the case. To heap further misery upon the tragedy, a Detective Mills of Bow Street vanished whilst staying with the reverend – thought accidentally drowned taking an early morning swim in the Channel.
The reverend has remained stoic throughout.