A Place Called Tranquility

Chapter 1

Sunday, April 7, 1782

It was half eight in the morning, and a typical cold and dreary morning was slowly brightening the Irish Sea. The earliest of the migratory seabirds had arrived and settled noisily in their traditional nesting grounds, located on the stony cliffs of Island Magee, near Whitehead, at the North entrance to Belfast Lough. They were just starting to leave the crags, their precarious nesting places, in search of breakfast for themselves and food for their newly hatched young.

The first flock of hungry birds began their approach to the ship from the North. They circled and hovered and dove and screamed around the sailing vessel Solitude, in anticipation of fish guts, heads or other edibles, heaved over the side of the slowly moving ship. The birds could not distinguish between fishing vessels and merchantmen, so they came by the dozens and swooped and glided gracefully around the ship, patiently waiting for it to disgorge its bounty. The Solitude was a merchantman, not a fishing vessel returning to port with a weeks catch. It had nothing edible to disgorge, there were no fish to clean. Slowly the birds realized there would be no feast and in twos and threes moved on in search of other, more hospitable prospects.

The recently built schooner was carrying a cargo of machine parts, shuttles and mechanical fittings destined for the mills of Belfast. She was heading for anchorage near Cunes’s shipyards, near to Dunbar’s dock, where the River Lagan spilled into Belfast Lough. She was making slow progress on a finicky northerly wind, while all the time rolling laboriously in the tidal swells. Captain John McClellan had hoped to make anchorage before the daylight failed. They were late in their expected arrival due to poor weather crossing the channel and a late departure from Liverpool. There had been problems with getting clearance to leave because of conflict over recent duties and restrictions imposed on some of the cargo they were carrying.

The rapid growth in spinning and weaving mills in Belfast was beginning to encroach on the profitable English cloth industry. Over the previous fifty years, powerful English merchants had successfully pressed the government for protective duties and restrictions on Irish goods. Every time the English parliament acted to suppress a threatening trade, the industrious Irish found another to take its place. The cloth industry had just become the latest threat and in response, parliament placed export restrictions on machinery needed to install and operate the recently invented carding machine, spinning mule and power loom. These new machines, at least for the moment, were not producible in Ireland. Limiting access to the machinery was a subtle way of hobbling the Belfast mills without creating a more controversial trade restriction on the export of cloth.

***

Aboard the schooner, Solitude’s only passenger was standing on the main deck watching the birds and the looming rugged coast of Counties Antrim and Down come into closer view. Anthony Hamill, a tall, well built and plainly handsome 25-year-old Irish bachelor from near Bushmills in the north of Antrim had been unable to sleep. He was a quiet man, a patient man, driven by the need for certainty, secure only in the comfort of proven facts and figures, slow to anger and steady in the face of controversy. He was cautious almost to a fault, taking no bold step, nor making any important decision, without serious consideration and calculation as to consequence.

Anthony had been standing at the portside railing on the weather deck of the Solitude since half-five. He had been giving considerable thought to his brother Andrew. Anthony loved his brother deeply. There was so much time between the births of Andrew and Anthony and the rest of their brothers that Andrew had assumed the role of big brother. He was Anthony’s friend and mentor, as well as his co-conspirator in prank and play.

While standing at the rail, he had witnessed first light on this dreary morning and as the daylight brightened, he became aware that the ship was making slow headway. As the cloud shrouded sun lifted off the eastern horizon, he had watched the seabirds with curiosity and a sense of wonderment at how easily and gracefully they maneuvered in flight.

He was also concerned that his brother Andrew, who was expecting his arrival the day before, would worry needlessly. During their childhood, Andrew had been both his comforter and his protector. However, he was also a worrier and given to overreaction in the face of unknown threat or danger. There was no doubt in Anthony’s mind that his brother had been plying the public houses and taverns that lined the streets near the quays, trying to get any information on the whereabouts of the schooner Solitude.

As Anthony stood at the rail, the ship finally entered Belfast Lough from the North Channel. Just coming into his view, off to the left, was the smaller port of Bangor, on the Ards peninsular in County Down. He guessed that if the wind remained out of the north and steady, they would probably arrive at anchorage by mid-afternoon. He was anxiously looking forward to seeing his brother, whom he hadn’t seen in nearly five years.