Marked For Misfortune: An Epic Tale Of Shipwreck, Human Endeavour And Survival In The Age Of Sail

by Jean Hood

In the August of 1792 the East Indiaman Winterton, with her precious cargo of 300,000 silver dollars, was wrecked on a reef off Madagascar. As the ship broke up, the 300 crew and passengers clung to pieces of wreckage, eventually to be washed up, exhausted, on the beach. More than 40 of them perished in the surf. John Dale, the second senior surviving officer, rigged up the ship’s yawl and set off with six officers to fetch help. But his efforts were marred by tragedy and misfortune. By the time he returned, alone, seven months later malaria had wiped out almost half the original survivors. And their ill luck did not stop there. War had since broken out between England and France, and on route to Madras the group was captured and imprisoned on Mauritius before finally gaining passage to India, while Dale himself was impressed into service on a French privateer, liberated by the Dutch and then taken prisoner again by the French, before reaching English shores more than two years after he had first set sail. Jean Hood has chronicled a fascinating episode in maritime history, which has all the more resonance for being rooted in the quiet heroism, the dignity, the suffering and courage of the sailors and passengers, men, women and children whose fate it was to board the ‘doomed’ Winterton

Genres: History, Nonfiction

288 pages, Hardcover

First published August 28, 2004

Reviews

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a cheerful book to read, but it should be read. Jean Hood's story of the wreck of a large wooden sailing ship, and its aftermath, is a perceptive assessment of individual human character. She gives a moving picture of people who showed courage, resourcefulness and leadership in spite of their youth, while a few others went to pieces and became ineffectual at a time of crisis. I am reminded of the parallel situation that Joan Druett later described in "Island of the Lost" (2007).

There is a horrific description of how the three-masted East Indiaman "Winterton" was smashed to pieces, pounded on a reef by heavy seas. One marvels that only about one in eight drowned at the wreck, and that more than 260 eventually got ashore on Madagascar one way or another. A few were the ship's officers, including the twenty-three year old John Dale. A lot of the crew survived the wreck, along with about 100 soldiers and their officer, who were to be joining the 75th Regiment in India. Most of the passengers survived, including several young women, teenagers and children.

Surviving shipwreck was, sadly, only the start of a long series of misadventures. About half the survivors died on Madagascar before rescue finally came, organised by the courage and resolve of John Dale and a few brave companions. However, even after rescue, many still had to endure successive hardships, including capture by a privateer and imprisonment on Mauritius when they were caught up in the war with the French Republic.

Chapter two seems to move slowly, as Jean Hood gives us details of many of those who went aboard the ship. In fact, this lays the background to her meticulous account of what many individuals later endured, and their final fates. The book seems very well researched, with pages of endnotes citing her sources in public archives, contemporary reports and private papers. Her use of specifically maritime terminology is commendably accurate. There are five useful maps, but I wish scales of distance and some lines of latitude and longitude had been included in these. The book has about twenty illustrations. I feel that deck plans of this class of Indiaman should have been included, to show the general layout of the roundhouse, cabins, poop and storage spaces.

"Marked for Misadventure" is a fine epic of fortitude, when people barely out of their teens showed heroism and leadership. It is also a sobering account of suffering at a time when so many people died tragically young.

[Pam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely amazing tale of endurance.