John Lynn

(British, fl. 1828-1838)

The East Indiaman Madagascar

Footnotes

Provenance
With J Davey and Sons.
Private collection, US.

Designed and launched as one of the so-called 'Blackwall frigates' rather than a thoroughbred East Indiaman, Madagascar was built on the Thames at Blackwall for Green's famous Blackwall Line in 1837. A handsome full-rigged ship of 835 tons, her most well-known master in her early days was Captain (later Sir William) Walker and her fastest recorded run was a 43-day dash from the Cape of Good Hope to the English Channel, a notable passage in the pre-clipper era. Sailing out of London, she plied her trade to India for about fifteen years and whilst this period of her career was mostly unremarkable, she nevertheless gained a solid reputation for speed and reliability.

Her regular routine was unexpectedly shattered when, in 1851, gold was discovered in Australia and a gold rush comparable with that happening almost simultaneously in California soon began to gather momentum. Many shipowners, Green's amongst them, switched vessels onto the Australia run and the speedy Madagascar, under Captain Fortescue Harris, immediately became very popular with passengers eager to get to the gold fields. She was equally in demand to bring those miners who had 'struck it lucky' and their new-found wealth back home and, in July 1853, she was lying in Port Phillip loading both a full complement of passengers as well as 68,390 ounces of gold dust destined for the Bank of England. Just before sailing, Melbourne detectives boarded her and arrested two passengers believed to be implicated in the notorious McIvor Gold Escort robbery which had taken place a short while before and which was the talk of the colony. They were acquitted, but the trial delayed Madagascar and she eventually departed a month late. This was the last sighting of her and she thereafter disappeared without trace in one of the Southern hemisphere's most intriguing maritime mysteries. Many years later, a dying woman in New Zealand confided to a priest that she had been a nurse aboard Madagascar on the final voyage during which the crew, aided by some of the passengers, mutinied and killed Captain Harris and his officers. The rest of the passengers, excepting the young women, were locked below and burned alive when the mutineers took to the boats having put the ship to the torch. The woman then recounted the privations of those in the boats and stated that, after the remnants of the party came ashore in Brazil, she was the sole survivor. No details of her story could ever be proved but, if nothing else, it served to embellish an already fascinating tale of shipwreck and lost gold.