Transcription of the original letter from William to his brother Alexander Currie. The final page is missing. The spelling, punctuation and capitalisation are as writ, but I have broken the letter up into paragraphs to make it easier to read.

"Port Elizabeth, Algoa Bay, Cape of Good Hope, October 15th 1856

My Dear Brother

I have not written to you since I left Sydney when I told you that I had shipped in the Barque Amigos for China thence England. I will now give you an account of that voyage which has just ended for the present.

We sailed from Sydney on the 30th Oct 55 with 140 Chinamen a cargo of coals & a crew consisting of 18 Men, Captns wife 2 children & servant. we had a fine passage. 9 days after we were out, sighted that garden of the world Norfolk Island. caught several Dolphin and Sharks. sighted several small Islands. one night in a gale of wind we lost foretop gallet mast yard & jibs & very nearly got ashore on a small Island, these seas are studded with small Islands most of them uninhabited our passage was rather long & the provisions began to get very scarce so we put into the Island of Saban one of the Ladrone Islands on 22nd Decr. it is a Spanish Island. the Govr and wife came on board, an old man with a Blue Serge Shirt & Dungeree Trousers. not much like a british Govr but his subjects are very meanly clad, naked except a scarf round the loins. we recd. there about 50 live Pigs, 4 Doz Fowls, Yams, Plantins, Bannanas, Oranges, Lemons, Cocoa Nuts & Bread Fruit, but we could get no Tea or Coffee. we sailed away on Sabbath the 23rd with a fair wind.

Killed several pigs & salted them down the remaining ones were sold to the China passengers which ran us very short again before we got to China. in the Eastern Seas the wind is very uncertain about the Equator & we had calms for some time which ran us very short of water & we had to reduce the chinamen's quantity of water from 3 qts to 3 pts Pr day pr man. we had no Tea, Sugar, Beef or coffee left & instead of going to Hong Kong as we anticipated & had fair wind for, the Capt altered course for Shanghae & a head wind at the time, now only living on Biscuit, water & Rice & the weather getting extremely cold. I can assure you it was almost starvation, in fact some of the chinamen died & I believe they were starved to death. we had to sew them in there beds & committ them to the Mighty Deep, ah even tho it were chinamen it is a solemn scene as a Funeral at sea. one of them had a brother on board who seem'd deeply affected & came & talked a great deal over him while we had the corpse on the gangway & then motioned to throw him over. they would not bury there own dead so some of the crew did it for £2 each.

we reached Hosong at the mouth of the river on the 18th Jany 56 & very glad we were for to get some provisions. we laid there 2 days while the chinamen were going ??? the Steamer which runs between here & Hong Kong but the rogue of a Captn never paid there passage down, kept all there Fire arms & 250£ which he borrowed from one of them in Sydney, he gave the poor fellow a check on the Hong Kong Bank.

we reached Shanghai on the 21st Jany 1856 & bitter cold it was the rigging was hanging with Ice & we had a good snow ball match on the Decks. it is a fine place as Shanghae and fine buildings about it, there is an English Town & a police Force here a french Town & the rest belongs to China. it is teeming with chinamen the China City is very dirty & the streets very ??? here you meet chinamen carrying chests of Tea on there backs & cash round there necks & in large baskets. there were 4 Rebels beheaded while we were here. H. M. Barracoutta Steamer came here with a few junks & guns she had taken from the Pirates. it is a fearful place for pirates.

The 2 mates left us here also the cook & a boy when we Discharged coals, took in Ballast & set sail on Feby 4th as we all thought for Hong Kong where the Captn had to deliver a Box of Spice consisting of £2000 but he never went, but to Swartow on the straights of Formosa when we arri. on 12th Feby. took in a cargo of Sugar & set sail on the 19th there are no Europeans living here it is not a free port, we had 5 live bullocks Pigs Fowls etc on board & we did not know where we were bound for for he would never tell any of us. after leaving Swarton we steer'd our sourse southward, spoke the Freak ship 119 days out bound fm Liverpool to Hong Kong. the Captn delighted in telling him lies, he told them he was bound to Shanghae for about a month after we were out. we had very rough weather, carried away our Bulwarks one night, the sea rose very high but it was a fair wind."

Letter stops here.

See the ship's list of crew aboard the Amigos, including Wm Currie, Steward (click SCAN at the bottom of the list)

Notes: The Ladrone Islands are now called the Mariana Islands, and Swartow is now Shantou.

Sources:

Currie family letters