Monday, 14 January 2019

Land ahoy!

1824
January 1st-3rd – On the morning of the New Year, I had the gratification of seeing the rocky shores of Cornwall and with a continued steady wind came to an anchorage off Dover on Saturday morning.

4th-10th, [January, 1824] – Gained the Downs on Sunday evening, where we lay becalmed for two days. Entered the river [Thames] on Wednesday evening, and had the pleasure of arriving safe at London on Friday morning having had a highly interesting journey.
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That is a very brisk passage across the North Atlantic in mid-winter, only three weeks from setting sail to sight-of-land at Cornwall, although it's another ten days before he disembarks in London.

And what of the ducks? Last heard of being seasick just out of New York I was of the view that Douglas ate them, along with the pigeons and quail. Not so, although it didn't end well for the pigeons. In a letter to Clinton, Douglas laments that he “most stupidly had put them in the same cage” and they had fought each other to death. But the quail and ducks seem to have survived and went to the Earl of Liverpool while the deceased pigeons went to anatomist Joshua Brooks

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