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YORK FACTORY
"The summer session had now come and I have often thought how foolishly I spent it, but the truth is the whole after part of my life has been governed by it. I suppose I felt fagged and restless and so wanted a holiday. It so happened that two medical men were wanted by the Hudson's Bay Co to go in their ships to Hudson's Bay. . . Whether I asked for an appointment or whether it was offered I do not remember -anyhow I found myself Surgeon of the Hudson's Bay Co's ship
Prince Rupert bound on a voyage to York Factory in Hudson's Bay. . . Anyhow I went to Hudson's Bay maybe to save a little money or for adventure - to see the world!""About the first week in June, probably 1846 or 47, I appeared on board the good ship Prince Rupert bound for York Factory, Hudson's Bay - she made an annual trip - the Captain, officers and men were all old hands - the ship built special for the service, as lined outside with thick planking and her bows were about six feet thick. . .In due course we arrive at coast of Caithness.
. . This coast was wild and looked uninhabited. At length we anchored in Stromness Harbor. . .we had come here to pick up some new servants of the Company for Hudson's Bay - I forgot how many, but every one had to be examined by me because no one would be engaged excepting he was in at least physical good health, and I found out, mentally, too. . .I only rejected one man whom I considered consumptive. . .At length we get away and shape out course for Hudson's Straits. . . One morning, when in my bunk, I heard a grating dull heavy grate alongside my ear. . I called the Steward.
'We are in the ice, Sir,' and sure enough when I got on deck, there was thick ice floating round about us and now and again scraping the ship's side! . . We carried this ice all the way to Hudson's Bay. . .Icebergs all around, innumerable - some seemed to loom as high as St. Paul's Cathedral. . .lanes opened up among the ice and the ship directed through them. . Esquimaux occasionally came about the ship - in their skin-covered canoes. They seemed small, greasy and covered with sealskin coats, some of which coats had long tails - of course of hair seals. They wanted tobacco or iron or any thing else
. . .They had but little to sell, save seal skins or dresses and the skins of white rabbits . . . I bought some rabbit skins and a sealskin dress . . . Another ship had sailed with us, with supplies and men for Sir John Franklin's search. . . Now the time we went through all this ice must have been the end of June and beginning of July . . . we at length arrived at the Fort
. . . The Factory was surrounded with palisades. . flimsy things. . .The interior was like other forts tho this was on a larger scale. . For hundreds of miles the country round about the Fort is but one vast morass. . . The whole time we were at York Factory, the Captain was in a fidget to get away lest he should be caught in the ice going home - At length we sail. . .
I took my seal skins and the buffalo robes home - thinking they might be valued as curiosities! But my folks say, 'How dreadfully fishy they smell - we can't have them in the room,' so they were consigned to the cellar and rotted there! If they had been sables the course would have been different."
THE MALACCA
"Well then here I am a full fledged Doctor with my fortune in a tin case (For I had none other). The next thing is - how to obtain a living . . .I wanted to see the world. . .Now it so happened that I called on Mr. Barclay at the HB House (Hudson's Bay) who in the course of conversation asked me, "What do you intend doing now?" So told him about going into the Navy, merely to spend two or three years at the same time see the world.
He thought me wrong . . .'. . .If you want to spend a year or two at sea, I will give you a letter to Mr. Richard Green the great ship owner, recommending him to give you a passenger ship going to the East Indies' . . .So I thanked him, took the letter and saw Dickey Green. . .In the end he said, 'You can have the Malacca, she is a small vessel, I am sorry I have not anything better to offer you" so I thanked him and accepted the Malacca'
John decided to sail with the ship when it went to China. via the "Eastern Passage" (the Sunda Strait, separating Sumatra and Java). Along the John saw many exotic sights, as the ship sailed through Formosa and on to Hong Kong and main land China. They sailed home through the straits of Malacca for Columbo Ceylon, then back to Bombay before they sailed back to England. John S. Helmcken (BCARS:ADD.MSS.505, V.12)
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