On Thursday, April 22, 1847, the homeward bound USS Jamestown, a Navy ship with a civilian captain and crew, slipped past Cove [Cobh], having discharged about 8,000 barrels of supplies for the destitute and starving Irish. An American sloop-of-war became a ship of peace in the first instance of a government sending on a humanitarian mission a naval vessel full of the charitable contributions of individual citizens. Robert Bennet Forbes, the ship's merchant captain, documented the voyage in a slim volume published upon his return; a book that can be found in Special Collections & Archives.
The USS Jamestown, frontispiece from The Voyage of the Jamestown on Her Errand of Mercy, Boston, 1847.
Blight had ravaged potato crops across Ireland in the late summer of 1846, destroying the health and livelihood of millions of Irish. Roughly one-third of the population relied for their sustenance solely upon potatoes, a crop easy to plant, grow, and harvest, and that provided a nutritious diet. Reliance on the potato, however, meant that any significant crop loss would result in hunger and ultimately starvation if no assistance could be found. The fungus that rapidly turned green and flourishing potato fields to blackened and putrid wastelands everywhere in the Emerald Isle levied a death sentence on the poor. One million Irish died, and another one million emigrated, the majority to North America, during what became known as the Great Famine, a four-year period beginning in 1845 that saw the crop fail completely in 1846 and 1848 and the longest and coldest winter, that of 1846-1847, in living memory.
Potato plant illustration from the Encyclopedia Britannica,11th edition.
As news of the famine spread, Americans from all walks of life and of all backgrounds banded together to send foodstuffs, clothing, and money to the starving Irish. Great statesmen and orators of the day -- Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and Edward Everett -- gave rousing speeches on the plight of the Irish. After Everett's speech in Faneuil Hall, the merchants of Boston on February 22, George Washington's birthday, asked Congressman Robert Winthrop to forward a petition requesting that the government lend to them a Navy vessel for the purpose of sending relief to Ireland. On March 3, Congress passed a joint resolution authorizing the loan of the Jamestown and on March 8, Secretary of the Navy John Y. Mason ordered Captain Foxhall A. Parker (who would later serve as ninth Superintendent of the Naval Academy) to prepare the sloop-of-war, then in ordinary at Charlestown Navy Yard, for delivery to Captain Forbes for the purpose of shipping New England's contributions for relief of the Irish.
The USS Jamestown, packed with the benevolent outpourings of Boston and the surrounding vicinity and devoid of its armament, with the exception of two cannon, left Boston on March 28, arriving at the outer harbor of Cork on April 12. On Wednesday, April 14, the crew began to discharge the ship's cargo into government stores. That same day Captain Forbes had the opportunity to witness for himself the horrors of the famine: "I went with Father [Theobald] Mathew, only a few steps out of one of the principal streets of Cork, into a lane; the valley of the shadow of death was it? Alas, no, it was the valley of death and pestilence itself! I saw enough in five minutes to horrify me--hovels crowded with the sick and dying, without floors, without furniture, and with patches of dirty straw covered with still dirtier shreds and patches of humanity....From this very small sample of prevailing destitution we proceeded to a public soup kitchen...hundreds of spectres stood...begging for some of this soup, which I can readily conceive would be refused by well bred pigs in this country. I do not say this with the least disrespect to the benevolent who provide the means and who order the ingredients; the demand for immediate relief, is so great at Cork, that if the starving can be kept alive, it is all that can be expected."
Local newspapers had heralded the arrival of the Jamestown and conveyed grateful sentiments regarding the willingness of Americans to provide aid to Ireland's starving masses. A note in The Constitution, or Cork Advertiser detailed the contents of the Jamestown's cargo. It included hams, pork, cornmeal, corn, bread, beans, peas, oatmeal, potatoes, flour, rye, oats, wheat, dried apples, fish, rice, and clothing. According to Captain Forbes's accounting, the value of these supplies totaled $35,868.53 (almost $1.5 million in 2022 dollars). The Pilot (Dublin) noted, "the war ships of America are not numerous. She is engaged in a contest with Mexico, requiring every available vessel she can muster, yet she can find time and heart to dispatch one sloop of war, bountifully laden, to the shores of this afflicted country." The Cork Examiner trusted "the gallant officers and crew of the Jamestown will be received in a manner at once worthy of their glorious mission and of the gratitude of the Irish nation."
One of the newspaper notices that Captain Forbes included in the appendix of The Voyage of the Jamestown.
A public dinner in Cove on April 15 and a soiree at the Cork Temperance Institute on April 19 honored Captain Forbes and the officers of the Jamestown. In toasting the merchant captain, Maurice Power, the chairman of the dinner, remarked to resounding "Hear, hears!" that Forbes had "indeed accomplished a great and a glorious mission. You have added a new glory to the land of your birth, the land of Washington and Franklin." In his response, Forbes commented, "Perhaps some may have doubted the propriety of establishing a new precedent by loaning for any purpose a ship of the United States. To all who entertained such doubts, I would say the case is altogether without precedent; it is not an every day matter to see a nation starving....what we are doing will be an example to be followed by some abroad who might shut their hearts to the calls of their neighbors--it will prove a seed sown in fruitful ground." Edmund Burke Roche, M.P., "felt he could not better conclude his few words than by proposing the health of the Government which had so liberally and so generously given a ship from their navy."
One of several poems included in the appendix.
By April 21, "the cargo was out and the ship ready for sea." The Irish committee in charge of distributing "the munificent offering from New England," with Forbes's concurrence, limited the range of the distribution to the county of Cork, selecting 150 localities for the allocation of five tons each, central towns being named as depots, and 20 tons being reserved for the city of Cork. As the Jamestown passed Cove on April 22, "the people cheered, the Consul lowered his flag, and as we passed Lieut. Col. Coryton's station on Spike Island, he mustered his marines and gave us a lot of hearty cheers, to which we responded and lowered our flag several times." On May 18, 1847, Captain Forbes returned the Jamestown to Captain Parker at the Charlestown Navy Yard, the sloop of war having completed her errand of mercy.
Sources:
[Forbes, Robert Bennet.] The Voyage of the Jamestown on Her Errand of Mercy. Boston: Eastburn's Press, 1847. VA 65.J354 F6 1847
Puleo, Stephen. Voyage of Mercy: The USS Jamestown, the Irish Famine, and the Remarkable Story of America's First Humanitarian Mission. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2021. DA 950.7.P85 2021
Somerset Fry, Plantagenet and Fiona Somerset Fry. A History of Ireland. London and New York: Routledge, 1988. DA 910. S68 1988
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