East Sails West: The Voyage of the Keying, 1846–1855

3. The Crew and the Voyage to New York

All Things Are Ready, If Our Mind Be So1 The Keying was sailed by a motley crew. Looked at from a ‘top-down’ European perspective, there were three European officers (Captain Kellett; G. Burton, mate; Edward Revett, second mate), possibly twelve other Europeans, fourteen if we include Douglas Lapraik and T. A. Lane, and possibly thirty, more probably forty, Chinese crewmen.2 The latter were under their Chinese captain, So Yin Sang Hsi, from the point of view of the day-to-day operation of the ship, which is where an alternative ‘bottom-up’ way of seeing the ship’s organization comes in, although one to which Western maritime law was entirely blind. It is this fundamental difference in how the sailors from the respective traditions saw their relationships and their roles that would seem to lie at the root of all that followed. We can catch a trace of this in both Account and Description, especially the former, where what must have been quite normal Chinese shipboard conduct is described in terms of shock: TheseChinamen...will,however,occasionallyskulkfromduty.Oftentimes two or three would decline work, which would have to be performed by some one more industrious. The one so employed, however, would use no harsh language to his compatriots. And again, One evening a noise was heard below by Capt. Kellett, and on inquiry, he found the tiller had been deserted in a severe blow, and some of the crew were endeavouring to persuade the delinquent to return to his duty, for fear the vessel might broach to . . . Chapter 3 The Crew and the Voyage to New York 64 East Sails West At sunset, the Ty Kong or Managing man, used quietly to lower three reefs to the fore mainsail, and entirely lower the mizzen. All the crew would then go to their cabin, leaving the helmsman alone on deck. At midnight a supper was prepared, when the sleepers were awakened. A long yarn would be spun while they were eating, and after the meal was despatched, the helm would be relieved, and the men would go to their berths again. This slack system was, however, finally reformed, after some slight objections. There, in a nutshell, we have a fundamental clash of maritime cultures. On the one hand, the relaxed, collegial world of the traditional trading junk with practices that were probably fairly similar to those of European trading craft in times before the complexities of larger ships dictated a more regimented, hierarchical system. On the other is the Western system, to which any such generous, collegial , easy-driving ways appeared to be mere slackness. It also highlights a problematic issue of authority. Who was in charge of whom? Table 1 The Itinerary Date Event 1846 19 October Left Canton 6 December Left Hong Kong 1847 26 January Exited Sunda Strait 30 March Passed Cape of Good Hope 17 to 23 April St. Helena 8 May Crossed Equator (in 170 40’W) 9 July Arrived in New York November Departed New York 18 November Arrived in Boston 1848 17 February Departed Boston 15 to 25 March St. Aubin’s Bay, Jersey 28 March Gravesend (possible visit to Antwerp, Belgium) 1853 May Departed London River 14 May Arrived River Mersey 29 September End of Active Life 1855 6 December Hulk (Tranmere Ferry) The Crew and the Voyage to New York 65 The puzzle here is the role of the Chinese ‘captain’, from the point of view of mid-nineteenth-century Western maritime law. The case that was brought against the Keying by some of its crew in New York revealed much about the incapacity of Western maritime law to see that this might have been a matter at issue. If we only consider as germane the Keying’s status as a Chinese ship with a Chinese crew, then So Yin Sang Hsi was, vis-à-vis Charles Kellett and the owners, a subcontractor . Thus he was responsible for finding, signing on and directing the crew, in addition to whatever responsibilities he bore. But whatever the practices whereby Chinese crew were acquired in Hong Kong and their shipboard life on a junk ordered, insofar as the Keying was considered a British ship in practice, So Yin Sang Hsi could not have been legally responsible for signing on and paying the Chinese crew nor for the operation of the ship at sea. That was the sole and ultimate responsibility of the...