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4. Challenges and Transitions: Shifting Identities
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| 83 4 Challenges and Transitions Shifting Identities July 26 O it is a dark, dismal day, and with all my efforts I can scarsely keep from slipping from my chair while writing, the ship is in such constant motion. To write well, I cannot if intelligibly it is a wonder, Oh I am quite tired of this roll and tumble life, and really today I feel almost homesick. It would not do to say so, though, for here is my liege lord and master, ready to say “Why did you come to sea then?” and sure enough, why did I leave my native soil in nature’s most pleasant season to spend the best days of my existence on old Oceans, heaving breast, separated from friends, debarred the privilege of mingling in the busy scenes of life? Ah! Love alone. Love stronger than death. One object dearer than all else. One tie in compassion, to which all others is of minor importance, binds me to earth, and where that object goes, there will I also go.1 entrieS froM rebecca’S Ship log, coMMenced in london nov 27 I suppose, it is “Thanksgiving Day” at home. William is so unwell we have not kept it, as usual in having extra dinners etc. William is quite unwell. Very weak. nov 29 William is very sick, and ought to be on shore.2 After spending five months ashore with family and friends, rebecca made the fateful decision to accompany William again, this time on a voyage with no definable destination but San Francisco. The couple embarked on a new, 84 | Challenges and Transitions much larger, extreme clipper ship named the Challenger. in this ship William and rebecca traveled from Boston to San Francisco, then on to China, London, and Chile. rebecca began the voyage with high hopes, but as the months wore on she seemed to face almost nothing but trouble, both on the sea, in her own spiritual life, and with her husband. The way rebecca narrated the story in her journal, it seemed as if the Challenger was a cursed ship, as rebecca’s experience went from problematic to tragic in the space of a year and a half. rebecca’s more terse and businesslike entries in the ship’s log she kept reinforce her prose in the journal; rebecca and William faced challenges, some too steep to overcome. rebecca donated two journals that hold information about the Challenger ’s voyage. Her more introspective journal shows a deeply changed rebecca, a character far different from her Whirlwind days. in this journal rebecca’s prose describes a woman whose main concerns are for her own health, the safety of the crew and ship, the condition of her own soul, and her family at Painting of the Challenger, the extreme clipper ship captained by William Burgess on his last fateful voyage. Painted in China in 1856. Photograph courtesy of the Sandwich Glass Museum and Historical Society. [3.90.255.22] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 16:32 GMT) Challenges and Transitions | 85 home. rebecca no longer wrote herself as a character who loved the sea but as a woman extremely homesick and burdened with worries. The log rebecca kept during her voyage from London to Chile shows her ability to keep chronometer time and her general nautical knowledge. it also tracks William’s health, which most likely consumed both her time and attention in the summer and fall of 1856. Together these two journals suggest that rebecca perceived herself as a woman in deep spiritual and personal crisis who felt she had to maintain control over the ship in late 1856. But what events precipitated this change in rebecca’s narrative tone? Early Optimism Signs of trouble emerged early in the voyage, although rebecca’s narratives suggest that at first, she was able to take the trials in stride—at least that is the message she was sending to William, who continued occasionally to make his own entries. The weather did not cooperate on this voyage, and rebecca and William again feared a long trip. rebecca noted in the first week of travel: “i hope we may make a quick passage to San Francisco for William thinks so much of a passage.” She seemed happy that William had taken her gentle guidance to heart, and noted with satisfaction his “cool and submissive” nature. Had William finally acquiesced fully to rebecca’s prodding to become a more “Christian” and patient man? or was...