the trip. The zephyr that had carried Columbus had turned to howling
tempest.
Since no one could predict how long the passage across the Atlantic
would take, and since the owners of private ships and the chandlers of gov-
ernment ships were obviously trying to make as much profit as they could,
vessels were usually poorly provisioned in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, and well into the nineteenth century. Biscuits were the staple; meat
was a luxury. Soaking in brine was the only means of preservation for beef or
pork, and passengers often found it rotten. Even if food began by being palat-
able or even edible, it was almost certain to be invaded by seawater while
stored in barrels in the hold. And wherever it was, it was sure to be gnawed
by rats and infested by worms. Biscuits soon became moldy and soggy, or as
one seventeenth-century sufferer put it, “most beastly rotten.”
Prudent passengers packed their own rations. Cognizant of the high
rate of death from bad food or a lack of food, Lord Baltimore advised immi-
grants to Maryland to take their own and provided an ideal inventory:
Fine Wheate-flower, close and well packed, to make puddings, etc. Clarret-
wine burnt. Canary Sacke. Conserves, Marmalades, Suckets, and Spices.
Sallet Oyle. Prunes to stew. Live Poultry. Rice, Butter, Holland-cheese, or
old Cheshire, gammons of Bacon, Porke, dried Neates-tongues, Beefe
packed up in Vinegar, some Weather-sheepe, meats baked in earthen potts,
Leggs of Mutton minced, and stewed, and close packed up in tried Sewet,
or Butter, in earthen pots: Juyce of Limons, etc.Ideal but not practical. Few passengers were rich enough to buy even sim-
ple food sufficient for the long voyage; most were completely dependent
upon the shipowners and crew for the little they got. When food ran out, as
was likely if a ship was becalmed, passengers sometimes ate one another or,
when they could catch any, the rats that infested all wooden vessels. On the
Virginia Merchant,where the passengers were starving,
The infinite number of rats that all the voyage had been our plague, we
now were glad to make our prey to feed on, and as they were insnared
and taken, a well grown rat was sold for sixteen shillings as a market rate.30 THE BIRTH OF AMERICA