Abstract
Since Plato, Europeans depicted ships as schools of vice. A close reading of eighteenth-century accounts of sea voyages, however, reveals that ships could also provide extended time for religious reading and writing. Passengers and sailors alike availed themselves of the educational opportunities that lengthy voyages afforded. This chapter examines the cultural context of eighteenth-century British sailing ships and analyses how these oceanic spaces provided distinct sites for religious reading and writing. For sailors and passengers alike, eighteenth-century sea voyages provided time for shipboard literary pursuits while limiting the range of other leisure activities. Ships also provided spaces that brought people from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds into close contact, providing opportunities for the exchange of books and learning together through shared reading. While eighteenth-century shipboard religious reading and writing occurred on a heavily individualized basis, they created the foundation for later institutional efforts to spread religion aboard ships through books.
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Notes
- 1.
Cotton Mather, The Religious Mariner. A Brief Discourse Tending to Direct the Course of Sea-men, in those Points of Religion, which May Bring Them to the Port, of Eternal Happiness (Boston, 1699), 1; Daniel E. Williams, ‘Puritans and Pirates: A Confrontation between Cotton Mather and William Fly in 1726’, Early American Literature, 22.3 (1987), 233–251.
- 2.
John Flavel, Navigation Spiritualized: A New Compass for Seamen, in The Works of John Flavel, Volume V (1820; reprint, London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1982), 207.
- 3.
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, ed. John Richetti (New York: Penguin Classics, 2003), 105.
- 4.
Marcus Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700–1750 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 169.
- 5.
Tim Flannery, ed., The Life and Adventures of John Nicol, Mariner (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1997), 28.
- 6.
Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, 158, 307.
- 7.
Christopher P. Magra, ‘Faith at Sea: Exploring Maritime Religiosity in the Eighteenth Century’, International Journal of Maritime History 19.1 (2007), 87–106; Richard Blake, Evangelicals in the Royal Navy, 1775–1815: Blue Lights and Psalm-Singers (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2008).
- 8.
George Whitefield, A Journal of a Voyage from London to Savannah in Georgia in Two Parts (London: James Hutton, 1739), 13.
- 9.
Earnest E. Eells, ‘An Unpublished Journal of George Whitefield’, Church History 7.4 (1938), 297–345 (299).
- 10.
N.A.M. Rodger, The Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy (Annapolis, Md: Naval Institute Press, 1988), 67–68.
- 11.
John Newton, The Journal of a Slave Trader, ed. Bernard Martin and Mark Spurrell (London: Epworth Press, 1962; John Newton, An Authentic Narrative of Some Remarkable and Interesting Particulars in the Life of John Newton. Communicated in a Series of Letters to the Rev. Mr. Haweis, Rector of Aldwinckle (London: J. Johnson, 1764); John Newton, Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade (London: J. Buckland & J. Johnson, 1788). Marcus Rediker provides a critical overview of this period of Newton’s life in The Slave Ship: A Human History (New York: Viking Press, 2007), 157–186.
- 12.
Newton, Authentic Narrative, 135.
- 13.
Newton, Authentic Narrative, 140.
- 14.
Meaghan Walker, ‘In the Inventories of Deceased British Merchant Seafarers: Exploring Merchant Shipping and Material Culture, 1860–1880’, International Journal of Maritime History 31.2 (2019), 330–46 (333).
- 15.
Samuel Kelly, An Eighteenth Century Seaman Whose Days Have Been Few and Evil, to Which Is Added Remarks, etc., on Places He Visited during His Pilgrimage in This Wilderness, ed. Crosbie Garstin (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1925), 129, 260–261.
- 16.
Zuriel Waterman Memoranda Book (1779), MSS 789, Rhode Island Historical Society.
- 17.
Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African in Pioneers of The Black Atlantic: Five Slave Narratives, 1772–1815, ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and William L Andrews (New York: Civitas Books, 1998), 270; Vincent Carretta, Equiano, The African: Biography of a Self-Made Man (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2005), 84–85.
- 18.
Equiano, Interesting Narrative, 228, 242, 247–248.
- 19.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African American Literary Criticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 139–183.
- 20.
At least four of the first narratives in English written by people of African descent were authored by individuals who served as sailors for at least a portion of their lives, Briton Hammond (published 1760), James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw (1770), John Marrant (1785), and Olaudah Equiano (1789).
- 21.
James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, A Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars In the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw An African Prince, as Related by Himself in Pioneers of the Black Atlantic: Five Slave Narratives from the Enlightenment, ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and W. L. Andrews (Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 1998), 40, 48.
- 22.
Hester Blum, The View from the Masthead: Maritime Imagination and Antebellum American Sea Narratives (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008), 2; Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, 158, 307; Dorothy Denneen Volo and James M. Volo, Daily Life in The Age of Sail (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002), 148.
- 23.
John Wesley, Journal and Diaries I (1735–38), in The Works of John Wesley, Volume 18, ed. W. Reginald Ward and Richard P. Heitzenrater (Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1988), 208.
- 24.
L. Tyerman, The Oxford Methodists: Memoirs of the Rev. Messrs. Clayton, Ingham, Gambold, Hervey, and Broughton, with Biographical Notices of Others (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1873), 68.
- 25.
Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, 155–156. For the ‘motley’ composition of ships’ crews, see also Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (Boston: Beacon Press, 2000), 27–28.
- 26.
Evangeline Walker Andrews, ed., Journal of a Lady of Quality; Being the Narrative of a Journey from Scotland to the West Indies, North Carolina, and Portugal, in the years 1774 to 1776 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1923), 44–45.
- 27.
Anonymous Sailor’s Diary (Sept. 18, 1733 - Sept. 1, 1735), MS. S-800, Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS).
- 28.
E. P. Thompson, ‘Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism’, Past and Present 38 (1967), 56–97.
- 29.
Rodger, Wooden World, 45–46.
- 30.
14 August 1796, Eleazar Elderkin, Journal of Voyage on ship Eliza 1796–1798, Call number 100896, Connecticut Historical Society (CHS).
- 31.
Elderkin, Journal, CHS.
- 32.
23 June 1793, Logbook of Daniel Francis, Log 389, Mystic Seaport.
- 33.
Kelly, Eighteenth Century Seaman, 226.
- 34.
Nicholas Cresswell, The Journal of Nicholas Cresswell 1774–1777, ed. Samuel Thornely (London: Jonathan Cape, Ltd., 1925), 11.
- 35.
Whitefield, Journal of a Voyage from London to Savannah, 47.
- 36.
Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville, New Travels in the United States of America, 1788, trans. Mara Soceanu Vamos and Durand Echeverria (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1964), 77.
- 37.
Samuel Davies, The Reverend Samuel Davies Abroad: The Diary of a Journey to England and Scotland, 1753–55 (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1967), 34.
- 38.
George Whitefield, A Continuation of the Reverend Mr. Whitefield’s Journal, from his Arrival at Savannah, to his Return to London (London: James Hutton, 1739), 29.
- 39.
E. Edwards Beardsley, Life and Correspondence of Samuel Johnson, D.D. (New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1874).
- 40.
Brissot de Warville, New Travels, 77.
- 41.
Wesley, Journal and Diaries I (1735–38), 313–14.
- 42.
Wesley, Journal and Diaries I (1735–38), 325.
- 43.
Rodger, The Wooden World, 68; Dudley Pope, Life in Nelson’s Navy (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1996), 87.
- 44.
Whitefield, Journal of a Voyage from London to Savannah, 44.
- 45.
Ingham, 69.
- 46.
John C. Brickenstein, ‘The First “Sea Congregation,” A.D. 1742’, Transactions of the Moravian Historical Society 1.2 (1868), 33–50; John C. Brickenstein, ‘The Second “Sea Congregation,” 1743’, Transactions of the Moravian Historical Society 1.3 (1869), 107–124; Geoffrey Stead, ‘Crossing the Atlantic: The Eighteenth-Century Moravian Experience’, Transactions of the Moravian Historical Society 30 (1998), 23–36.
- 47.
Brickenstein, ‘First “Sea Congregation”’, 33.
- 48.
Brickenstein, ‘Second “Sea Congregation”’, 118–119.
- 49.
Roald Kverndal, Seamen’s Missions: Their Origin and Early Growth (Pasadena, Ca.: William Carey Library, 1986), 11.
- 50.
Quoted in Blum, The View from the Masthead, 29–31. See also Paul A. Gilje, Liberty on the Waterfront: American Maritime Culture in the Age of Revolution (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press, 2004), 195–227.
- 51.
Harry R. Skallrup, Books Afloat & Ashore: A History of Books, Libraries, and Reading Among Seamen During the Age of Sail (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1974), 17–40.
Bibliography
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Beardsley, E. Edwards, Life and Correspondence of Samuel Johnson, D.D. (New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1874)
Blake, Richard, Evangelicals in the Royal Navy, 1775–1815: Blue Lights and Psalm-Singers (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2008)
Blum, Hester, The View from the Masthead: Maritime Imagination and Antebellum American Sea Narratives (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008)
Brickenstein, John C., ‘The First “Sea Congregation,” A.D. 1742’, Transactions of the Moravian Historical Society 1.2 (1868), 33–50.
———, ‘The Second “Sea Congregation,” 1743’, Transactions of the Moravian Historical Society 1.3 (1869), 107–124.
Brissot de Warville, Jacques-Pierre, New Travels in the United States of America, 1788, trans. Mara Soceanu Vamos and Durand Echeverria (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1964)
Carretta, Vincent, Equiano, The African: Biography of a Self-Made Man (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2005)
Cresswell, Nicholas, The Journal of Nicholas Cresswell 1774–1777, ed. Samuel Thornely (London: Jonathan Cape, Ltd., 1925)
Davies, Samuel, The Reverend Samuel Davies Abroad: The Diary of a Journey to England and Scotland, 1753–55 (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1967)
Defoe, Daniel, Robinson Crusoe, ed. John Richetti (New York: Penguin Classics, 2003)
Eells, Earnest E., ‘An Unpublished Journal of George Whitefield’, Church History 7.4 (1938), 297–345
Equiano, Olaudah, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African in Pioneers of The Black Atlantic: Five Slave Narratives, 1772–1815, ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and William L Andrews (New York: Civitas Books, 1998)
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———, To Swear Like a Sailor: Maritime Culture in America, 1750–1850 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016)
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Kverndal, Roald, Seamen’s Missions: Their Origin and Early Growth (Pasadena, Ca.: William Carey Library, 1986)
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Berry, S.R. (2021). The Sailing Ship as a School of Virtue. In: Liebich, S., Publicover, L. (eds) Shipboard Literary Cultures. Maritime Literature and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85339-6_3
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