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The ship "Brilliant" departed from Aberdeen on April 12, 1842,
and picked up the passengers at Cromarty on the North-Eastern tip of
the Black Isle. John Prebble (in The Highland Clearances) noted that
conditions for steerage passengers were very poor aboard ship. They
paid a fare of six to eight pounds for a narrow berth and food, but
adults were expected to perform additional duties during the voyage.
The berth of pine shelves, stacked a couple of feet (60 cm) apart and
measuring three feet by six feet (90 cm by 180 cm), was often shared
by at lEast two people and lacked privacy. Defying obliteration in this
unlit space between decks, a steaming stench was held captive from previous
voyages.
Food was prepared by one of the emigrants, whose provisions and imagination
might limit the passengers to an unvarying diet of stew topped by an
occasional dumpling or biscuit. If luck prevailed, a gruel of oatmeal
and tainted water might serve for the final days of the crossing. Conditions
below decks guaranteed a fast deterioration in quality of such staples
as potatoes, onions or turnips.
According
to the records of Lloyd's of London, the 332-ton "Brilliant",
had been built there in 1814. After twenty-eight years on the high seas,
maintenance details had to be assigned watches in the hold to repair
leaky seams. Lack of ventilation encouraged fungi to attack the oak
hull and to produce the ever-present dry rot.
Captain Elliot docked
the ship at the Port of Quebec on May 23rd of 1842, and thirty-eight
surviving steerage passengers made their way to the immigrant sheds.
Another ship, the Bark "James Dean" from Glasgow arrived with
twenty-nine passengers shortly afterwards, and both ships were confined
under quarantine at Grosse Isle.
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