Germans by the Shipload Slide 3

Date: 13 Sep 1750 to 6 Sep 1752
Location: Halifax, Nova Scotia GERMANS BY THE SHIPLOAD

SLIDE 3

This is a study of several different variables from ten ships of Palatine German emigrants that arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1750, the purpose of which was to see which of the variables was most closely linked with the high death rate.

This page examines whether the number of days it took to cross the North Atlantic had a causal relationship with the worst outcomes—that is, whether taking too long to cross, no matter the cause of the lengthier crossing, could be associated with some of the worst outcomes.

Palatine Ships to Nova Scotia¹—Ordered by Crossing Length—Top Five (Longest)

	Passenger Counts				Departure	Departure	Arrival	Arrival
Names of Ships	Start	End	Deaths	Loss%	(Calendar)	(Ordinal)	(Calendar)	(Ordinal)	Crossing Days
(1) SALLY	258	218	40	15.5%	5/9/1752	(130-L)3	9/6/1752	(250-L)	120
(2) GALE2	249	220	29	11.6%	5/19/1752	(140-L)	9/6/1752	(250-L)	110
(3) MURDOCK	298	269	29	9.7%	6/25/1751	(176)	10/1/17512	(274)	98
(4) PEARL2	251	212	39	15.5%	5/23/1752	(144-L)	8/21/1752	(234-L)	90
(5) PEARL1	264	232	32	12.1%	6/30/1751	(181)	9/24/1751	(267)	86
Averages	264	230.2	33.8	12.8%	June 3rd	(154)	Sep 11th	(254)	101

Palatine Ships to Nova Scotia¹—Ordered by Crossing Length—Bottom Five (Shortest)

	Passenger Counts				Departure	Departure	Arrival	Arrival
Names of Ships	Start	End	Deaths	Loss%	(Calendar)	(Ordinal)	(Calendar)	(Ordinal)	Crossing Days
(6) SPEEDWELL1	229	212	17	7.4%	5/6/1751	(126)	7/21/1751	(202)	76
(7) SPEEDWELL2	276	263	13	4.7%	4/30/1752	(121-L)	7/14/1752	(196-L)	75
(8) BETTY	161	154	7	4.3%	4/30/1752	(121-L)	7/14/1752	(196-L)	75
(9) ANN	322	305	17	5.3%	7/1/1750	(183)	9/13/1750	(256)	74
(10) GALE1	214	205	9	4.2%	5/30/1751	(150)	8/8/1751	(220)	70
Averages	240.4	227.8	12.6	5.24%	May 20th	(140)	Aug 2nd	(214)	74

Comparison of Data Ranked By Crossing Length

Averages For Top Five Longest Crossings..................	June 3rd – Sep 11th (101 days)	264.0 passengers (12.8% loss)
Averages For The Five Shortest Crossings.................	May 20th – Aug 2nd (74 days)	240.4 passengers (5.24% loss)

Analysis of Results
We finally have our first significant difference in outcomes in this study: between the ships that took the longest to cross the North Atlantic, and those that made the crossing in the shortest times.

This time, we have a difference of 27 days between the longest and shortest crossing averages of the two groups. And those extra 27 days directly affected the outcomes, pushing up the average losses by 7.56 percentage points.

But what accounted for the difference in the lengths of some of the crossings, while not affecting others? We've already examined the number of passengers, and we see that the number of passengers by itself was not enough to account for worsened outcomes. For example, the Ann, which had the largest passenger load of all of the ten ships, had one of the shortest crossing times: just 74 days! In fact, the Ann was beat by only one other ship—the Gale, on its first crossing in 1751, which took only four fewer days.

Commercial Operations on "Packet Ships" Traversing the North Atlantic
Carrying passengers was only one component of the commercial moneymaking ventures in which the British engaged on the high seas. The North Atlantic of the 18th century was a superhighway of ships transporting people and goods—both raw materials and finished products—between Europe and North America. Ships transported raw materials from the Americas to Europe, and finished products from Europe to North America.

It took quite a long time to discover that many of the ships that brought our ancestors to America were decommissioned British military vessels which had been recommissioned as private commercial "packet ships" for carrying people and goods across the Atlantic.

Unfortunately, there appear to be no surviving records of what other commercial cargo was being carried to North America along with our ancestors. However, it is safe to say that, depending on exactly what was being carried, and the weight of that cargo, these ships could vary significantly in their weights.

As well, the greater the passenger load, the more food and water stores were required. Of course, when it came to which cargo received the highest priority for being loaded onto the ship—food and water for poor Germans, which generated no income, or lucrative commercial cargo—we can take an educated guess as to where corners would have been cut.

Effect of Cargo Deadweight on Ship's Speed
On forums related to the racing of modern yachts, some discussions center around deadweight aboard ship, and how that might affect the speed of the vessel. A vessel's "light weight" (which means its weight completely empty—or the weight of the ship itself) plus all of the "deadweight" (absolutely everything it is carrying) equal the displacement of a certain amount of water equal to the sum of the two: ship + deadweight = total weight = displacement. The greater the total weight, the greater the displacement, and the lower the vessel rides in the water, which increases the friction between the exterior hull and the water, and slows down the vessel. The cleanliness of the outside of the hull further impacts the speed as the ship rides lower in the water.

Even in modern yachts, which are constructed primarily of fiberglass, this was said to significantly affect speed, but in the clipper ships of yore, the oaken timbers from which the ships were constructed were often colonized with worms, barnacles and seaweed!

The exact displacement of each of these ten ships will always be an unknown, but we might guess that the order in the tables above roughly mirrors the order of greatest to least displacement.

Next, the Summary
We'll wrap up the results of this study on the next slide. As well, we'll see how much money Mr. John Dick collected on his shipments of Germans to Halifax, Nova Scotia.

View Next Slide

Footnotes
(1) For this study, two ships (Alderney and Nancy) were eliminated due to lack of passenger counts which makes it impossible to do comparisons.
(2) Arrival date for the Murdock was incorrectly said to be September 31st, which has been changed to October 1st.
(3) "-L" signifies that it was a Leap year.

Sources
The History of Nova Scotia: Landry, Peter. The Lion and the Lily. Part 5: "The Intermission." Chapters 6 ("Immigrants by the Shipload") and 8 ("The Settlement of Lunenburg"). Also the table titled, "Twelve Immigrant Ships: The Arrivals at Halifax, 1750-52," linked from the text in Chapter 6. These materials, along with the list of ships and their data, were freely available online at at a website called BluePete.com, which I visited on various dates in Feb 2023. This book is available from various booksellers.