Madagascar (ship)
 The ship on a 19th century print
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The Madagascar was a three-masted Blackwall frigate that was built in 1837 at the Blackwall shipyard in London for George and Henry Green. The Green family remained the owners save for an eighth, who held the ship's first captain, William Harrison Walker. The Madagascar was the second ship of this type after the Seringapatam .
Until 1852 she served as a passenger ship and troop transport between Great Britain and India. The ship always had many sea cadets on board who were trained as officers for the merchant navy. Known for its speed, it made the route from the Cape of Good Hope to the Canal in 43 days.
In 1853 she was used as a passenger ship to Australia as part of the first Australian gold rush . The captain was (since 1852) Fortescue William Harris (born 1821). She left Plymouth on March 11th and arrived in Melbourne on June 10th. In the port, 14 men of the 60-person crew joined the gold rush and the captain was only able to get around three replacements in the port. The ship was supposed to sail back to London loaded with wool, rice and two tons of gold on board and 110 passengers in August. The gold was then valued at around £ 290,000 .
Shortly before the departure the police came on board and arrested the bush robber (bushranger) John Francis. It was later revealed that he was one of those who had robbed the gold transport between the McIvor gold field in Heathcote, Victoria, and Kyneton on July 20 ( stealing around 2,200 ounces of gold and cash, most of which disappeared). He later only escaped the gallows in which he testified against his accomplices. The next day, two other suspects were arrested, one on board and the other about to board. The passengers were interrogated as they were looking for more suspects. However, no others could be linked to the gold theft, even if many of them had a considerable amount of gold dust in their luggage. The Madagascar was only able to sail on August 12th . After she passed Port Phillip , she was never seen again. No remains were found either. About 150 people have been missing since then.
As a result, there were numerous rumors and speculations about the whereabouts of the ship and its gold cargo. For example, a collision with an iceberg or spontaneous ignition of the wool carried along was suspected and it was even speculated that mutineers had seized the gold cargo and murdered the passengers and crew. This version was also reflected in various novels and short stories, first in the novel of the wife of the French consul in Melbourne, Céleste de Chabrillan Les voleurs d´or (1857), some serial novels in the Australian Monthly Magazine in 1866 and 1867 and in Frank Fowler Adrift , or The Rock in the South Atlantic from 1861.
Basil Lubbock tells in his book The Blackwell Frigates that a woman in New Zealand claimed on her deathbed that she was a nanny on the last voyage of Madagascar. The ship would have fallen victim to mutiny. The mutineers had left the ship in the South Atlantic with some young women and the gold and set it on fire. However, only a few would have reached Brazil, would have lost the gold on landing in the surf and would have died there, except for two (one of whom was later hanged in San Francisco for murder) and the witness herself from yellow fever and other dangers.
literature
- Basil Lubbock The Blackwall Frigates , Boston, Charles Lauriat, 1922, pp. 152f, online
Web links
Footnotes
- ^ Biographical information and photo by Harris
- ↑ Exactly 68,390 ounces of gold dust, or 1.91 tons. Lubbock The Blackwall Frigates , p. 152. There was also gold from the passengers.
- ↑ The official price in London was 4.25 pounds per troy ounce in 1853, today the equivalent of 32,499,936.29 euros .
- ↑ Article George Melville in Australian Bushrangers ( Memento of the original from February 17, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . The arrested George Wilson was later hanged.
- ↑ However, she did not arrive until after the events in Melbourne
- ↑ 1861 as The gold steelers in Victorian Review in translation
