On a bright winter day in 1826, a genteel young English woman named Ann Saunders boarded a vessel sailing from New Brunswick to Liverpool.
She was looking forward to the voyage: the outward journey had been a delight and the return looked set to be the same.
‘We set sail,’ she later wrote, ‘with a favourable wind and the prospect and joyful expectations of an expeditious passage.’
On board were 21 souls, including Ann’s close friend Mrs Kendall, wife of the captain.
The Francis Mary had been at sea for almost three weeks when a ferocious storm struck the vessel. ‘About noon,’ wrote Ann, ‘our vessel was struck by a tremendous sea, which swept from her decks almost every moveable object.’ One of the mariners was washed overboard.
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Worse was to come: a few hours later, part of the hull was ripped open by a massive wave and the ship’s provisions flooded. The ship was soon so full of sea water that the crew - along with Miss Saunders and Mrs Kendall - were forced to move to the forecastle, the only part of the ship not yet waterlogged.
Some 50 pounds of bread and biscuit had been rescued from the hold, along with a few pounds of cheese. It was precious little sustenance for the 21 people now clinging to the only part of the ship above water.
By 6 February, the food had almost run out and the rations were reduced to a quarter biscuit per day. It was not long before men began to die.
Sailor James Clarke was the first to succumb: he died on 12 February. Next to expire was John Wilson, ten days later. By now, there was no food left and so the survivors decided not to commit Wilson’s body to the deep.
Instead, ‘it was cut into slices, then washed in salt water, and after being exposed to and dried a little in the sun, was apportioned to each of the miserable survivors.’
At first, Ann Saunders could not bring herself to eat human flesh. But after 24 hours of starvation, ‘I, too, was compelled by hunger to follow their example.’ After this terrible meal, ‘we eyed each other with mournful and melancholy looks.’
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Men now began to die at an alarming rate. Sailor Moore, Henry David, John Jones, the cabin boys and many more. They died ‘raving mad, crying out lamentably.’
The weakened survivors, now without water, ‘were driven to the melancholy distressful horrid act (to procure of their blood) of cutting the throats of their deceased companions a moment after the breathe of life had left their bodies.’
When Miss Saunders’ companion, Mrs Kendall, ate the brains of one of the seamen, she was so pinched with hunger that declared it: ‘the most delicious thing she ever tasted.’
Next to die was Miss Saunders’ fiancée, James Frier. His blood, wrote Ann, 'was a bitter cup indeed.' Soon after, several more of the crew expired, leaving only six people left alive. When a rescue vessel finally came in sight - the HMS Blonde - these six, including Miss Saunder, were on the point of death.
The captain of the Blonde was horrified to hear that they’d survived on human flesh and even more appalled to see slices of meat hanging on the ropes.
The rescue vessel finally arrived in Liverpool in April and Ann Saunders made her way home. Her joy in life was gone but her faith remained strong. And she had survived an ordeal that had killed fifteen of her travelling companions.
‘I think,’ she wrote, ‘I can say I had witnessed more of the heavy judgements and afflictions of this world than any other of its female inhabitants.’
Whether or not she became vegetarian is no where recorded.
Whether or not she became vegetarian is no where recorded.
From: A Narrative of the Shipwreck and Sufferings of Miss Ann Saunders, 1827.
