Madeira galore

The next record I looked at was about the good ship Murdoch of Glasgow - under Archibald Orr, master - ran aground on 1st December 1769 on her way from York River in Virginia, a little to the south of Girvan. She had six foot of water in her hold - and on board 433 hogs heads of tobacco (v large barrels - see picture above from Jefferson's father's map of Virginia - that our Robert Donald sitting down there? He was in America from 1741-1758, so right time for the picture)  - belonging to Murdoch and Donald (Alexander). They immediately sent lots of tidesmen from the creeks of Girvan and Turnberry down to her "to prevent any embezzlement of the cargo".

Some of the hogsheads were salvaged and there was then a big fuss about getting them to Greenock and also to make sure that customs knew what was coming in. For the damaged tobacco, they had to arrange to have it burnt at Girvan - again, big fuss as they wanted to make sure none went missing. In the end only 124 hogs heads sailed to Greenock in two vessels.

Things were looking a bit iffy, so four soldiers were then sent down to keep an eye on things - "to prevent embezzlement and to furnish us, from time to time, with accounts of their proceedings". Archibald Orr - probably wanting to get home for Christmas wants to crack on with the burning of the tobacco but is held up whilst the customs people await orders on that. Then the paper work wasn't in order, so that caused another delay.

Suddenly things take a turn - the good folk of Girvan decide to intervene - and am not sure where the soldiers are when all this is happening:

That a half hogshead of Madeira wine specified in said manifest was forcibly conveyed or carried out of the ship by the country people, who emptied most of it and adulterated the remainder with salt water so as to render the same useless, which circumstance is corroborated by the inclosed letter from the surveyor, 

Now, I'm  not one to suggest this report isn't totally accurate, but the country folk broke into a ship at New Years in Scotland, stole a barrel of Madeira and then poured salt water into it to spoil it? Mmm, not sure if I am totally buying that.

This is quite exciting - you can also scan in from mircofilms at UVA and save them onto a stick - well, I found it exciting - means I can keep all these documents and start up the Donald Colonial Project:

The final report, from 15 January - there is no relief for tobacco lost at sea and the ashes of the 25 hog heads that had been burnt were to be sold. The good ship Murdoch was destroyed by the storms.