The people who had Elizabeth's passage in charge conceived the idea that
the safest way to get her on board the vessel, which was waiting at the
dock, would be to ship her as freight. So she was put into a large
hogshead, and securely fastened up, and then carried on board. She must
have been a girl of a good deal of pluck, for the vessel was not to sail
for several days, and she must remain in the hogshead all that time, as
the officials of the port might come on board at any moment and discover
her, if she should get out of her hiding place. I have no doubt that she
was supplied with three or four meals a day through the bunghole.
Not only was Elizabeth's precious self thus duly consigned to America as
if she had been ordinary merchandise, but a great many of her valuable
possessions, jewels, clothes, etc., were also shipped to accompany her.
In the course of time, and it must have been a dreary time to this poor
girl, the ship moved out of the dock, and started on its voyage across
the North Sea, and then over the Atlantic to the new country. Not until
the vessel was well out of sight of land, and free from danger of being
overhauled by a vessel of the Swedish navy, did Elizabeth come out of
her barrel and breathe the fresh sea air.
At that time, early in the seventeenth century, a good many vessels
crossed the Atlantic, and most of them must have made safe and
successful voyages; but it so happened that the ship in which Elizabeth
sailed was not a fortunate craft. When she reached the far-stretching
Jersey coast, dangerous even now to mariners who know it well, this
vessel was overtaken by storm, and soon became a hopeless wreck.
It might have been a very good thing if Elizabeth had concluded to end
her voyage as she began it. If she had put her valuables into her
hogshead, and then had jumped in herself and had asked some of the
sailors to fasten her up, there is no doubt that she would have floated
ashore, if she had known how to keep the open bunghole uppermost,--which
no doubt she did,--and would have saved all her possessions. If one must
float through stormy waves and great breakers, there is no safer way to
do it than in a hogshead, as has been proved by the man who in that way
navigated the fierce rapids at Niagara. But Elizabeth did not go back to
her hogshead. She took her chances with the rest of the people on
board, and with them was cast on the shore of New Jersey.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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