Title
A Voyage to the East Indies: Page 5
Description
The Duke of Grafton, East Indiaman. Captn Saml. Bull Commander, left Portsmouth on Sunday the 7th of March 1779 with Twelve other Indiamen, under the convoy of Sir Edwd Hughes Knt. in the Superbe 74 Gunship & eight Men of War and sloops, Transports & other vessels to the number of Forty sail or upwards. We proceeded down Channel with a fair wind to Plymouth, off which place we were joined by the Belleisle Man of War, and the Nymph sloop of Eighteen Guns, which latter had been dispatched from Portsmouth a few days before, to acquaint the Belleisle of the Admiral’s Intention to sail speedily. The Grafton was very deeply laden, having been freighted considerably beyond her Tonnage. Her ship’s company consisted of 120 men for the most part Landsmen many of whom had never before seen the Sea. People unacquainted with those affairs would wonder, why so easy a Service, where there is more Pay, and less danger than in the Navy, should be so destitute of good Seamen, but they must be inform’d that after a man in the capacity of a common sailor on board an Indiaman has been absent from his native country and Friends for the space of two or perhaps three Years, when he has overcome the Dangers of the Sea, a long Voyage, the Scurvy, Inclemencies of foreign climates, and [end page 5]
