SURVIVOR OF A SHIPWRECK (MARITIME.) SHIPWRECK. The Testimony of Thomas Kent, a colored man aboard the brigantine Britannia, wrecked off the coast of New Brunswick, British North America. The Court duplicate. 4 pages folio, written on three sides and docketed on the fourth; signature of the notary, official seal and marked with an "X" by the sailor. with the contemporary newspaper account of the wreck. City of Saint John, New Brunswick, 1835
"Personally came and appeared Thomas Kent, late a seaman on board the brigantine Britannia of this port, who being duly sworn, deposed and saith, that he sailed from this port in the said brigantine under the command of Thomas Millridge Walker on the twenty-first day of December, last bound for Berbice with a cargo of lumber and fish. That the vessel proceeded on her voyage without incident until the twenty-seventh day of December on which day she was hove to in a violent gale. . . that a few minutes before midnight, a very heavy sea struck her and capsized her on her beamends." The vessel had literally been rolled over by the sea, dismasting her and flooding the interior cabins with water. She was then rolled over again, righting herself. The result was the loss of all hands below deck, except four, including Thomas Kent, a colored seaman. The wreckage of the ship with the four clinging to it was sighted a week later by the packet ship Caledonia, bound from New York to Liverpool. Still heavy seas prevented their immediate rescue. "The second day after the accident, [they] caught a shark whose blood served the survivors for drink; upon this and a barrel of potatoes they subsisted until relieved by the Caledonia." Many African Americans went to sea to escape slavery.
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