From The Famine Ships: The Irish Exodus to America, by Edward Laxton (St. Martins, 2024), Kindle pp. 54-56:
No fewer than 5,000 crossings are estimated to have carried the million Irish Famine emigrants westwards over the Atlantic. Yet a single passage in the opposite direction has achieved great significance historically. This was the voyage of the Jamestown, a well-armed man-of-war and one of only six sloops in the American navy, transformed overnight into a merchant vessel on a mission of mercy.
The winter months of 1846 right through to the following spring were bitterly cold, with unusually heavy snowfalls, and the full extent of the suffering in Ireland, especially during the early months of 1847, was never fully or widely appreciated around the world, especially in England where the plight of the Irish achieved neither recognition nor sympathy. The greatest help came from the United States: the recent emigrant arrivals carried the news with them and each one had a personal story which bore testimony to the hopeless situation in every corner of their homeland. Months before the first of the coffin ships sailed, a wave of relief organizations and meetings broke across America. Ships from Newark, Philadelphia and New York sailed before the spring arrived for Cork, Londonderry and Limerick, carrying some clothing but mostly food.
The Quakers Society of Friends were the first large-scale organizers of relief for Ireland, and when the American Vice-President chaired a huge public meeting in Washington on February 9th, they urged that every city, town and village should hold a meeting so that a large national contribution might be raised and forwarded with all practicable dispatch to the scenes of the suffering. Just before that meeting, the government in London announced they would pay the freight charges on all donations of foodstuffs to Ireland.
Washington matched this by stating that no tolls would be charged on roads or canals for goods on their way to Ireland, and several independent railway companies promised to carry suitably labelled packages for free. Cash came in from all sides, including a noteworthy contribution of US $170 dollars from the Choctaw Indian Tribe. Suddenly, available shipping for the eastern crossing of the Atlantic became scarce, and another crowded February meeting, this time in Boston, heard that Congress had been petitioned that one of the ships of war now lying in Boston Harbour, be released to sail for Ireland freighted with provisions.
Reaction in the capital was swift. We need to remember that at this time America was heavily engaged in war against Mexico. Congress voted on March 8th that the USS Jamestown in Boston and the USS Macedonian in New York be released from service, their armaments removed and assigned to the Irish Relief Committee in each city who would arrange for a civilian captain and crew to sail these ships to Ireland with relief supplies.
Three weeks later, the Jamestown set sail. The sloop, which was 157 feet long, 1,000 tons and normally carried 22 guns, was now commanded by Captain Robert Bennet Forbes, a well-known Bostonian. By May 16th he was back home, fully a month before the Macedonian, a frigate of 1,700 tons with 44 guns and buffeted by all sorts of political problems, could leave New York.
Loading had begun in Boston on St Patrick’s Day; the Labourers’ Aid Society composed almost entirely of native Irishmen, stowed all the cargo without drawing pay. If the departure of the Jamestown was seen as such a triumph in America, imagine how she was greeted as she dropped anchor after a voyage of only 15 days in the harbour of Cove, close to Cork City.
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