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A hair-raising tale of drunken debauchery among officers and passengers on a ship taking them to settle in Australia in the 1830s has been revealed in a journal to be auctioned this month.
The detailed account kept by James Bell, a junior officer on "Planter", reveals the ship's captain shared his bed with two daughters of a preacher and that a gang of prostitutes also made the voyage.
"Our Capt of course could not want a mistress till he returned to his own in England, but made love to 2 of McGowans daughters," Bell wrote, in extracts released by Bonhams auction house.
"The Capt was allowed to keep the daughters company at all hours, and during the whole time of our being in warm weather our bed on deck sufficed for all three."
While not engaging in amorous conquests, the captain frequently clashed with other crew members in alcohol-fuelled fights, the journal records.
"The Capt and Surgeon having last evening disagreed and begun to review each others conduct the dispute ran so high as to provoke the former to knock the latter down with his fist," Bell wrote.
Of the women aboard, he said they were "natives of some obscene Alley, in some obscene Street, of that renowned city London, and who are conveying in themselves all the filth of the place of their nativity, to Adelaide".
The ship sailed from Deptford in London on November 25, 1838 and reached Adelaide on May 16, 1839.
The 225-page volume, which was bought for a few pounds at a book stall, is expected to fetch up to 4,000 pounds (4,550 euros, 6,200 dollars) when it is auctioned at Bonhams in London on March 23.
