PART I CALENDAR OF CORK EMIGRANT SHIP SAILINGS 1815-60
from the Committee of His Majesty’s Council in Nova Scotia bluntly predicted dire results in the absence of proper regulatory measures at the port of origin: Under these circumstances disease is inevitable, and the wretched beings are not only thrown on shore in a state which renders them incapable of procuring their own subsistence, but they carry infection among those who may charitably receive them. – The law which restrained these evils is no longer in force in Great Britain, and we have no legislative enactment there to prevent the recurrence of the calamity which we have endured this year, or to punish the authors of it. The committee understood that without the proper regulation of emigrant ships, Nova Scotia would have to develop its own policies and protocols as illnesses and fatalities arose. This would require enhanced authority, control, and communication at the intended, or as was often the case, unintended port of debarkation. Although over half of British emigrants found ways to migrate and settle in the US, the pricey passage to New York or Boston meant that the first point of arrival for many was a British North American port, where the frequency of the interactions between such port and counterparts throughout Europe and the Caribbean meant that a town such as Halifax was accustomed to receiving visitors long before the advent of mass immigration.
Fig. 4: Liverpool, Ships on the Mersey.
* Irish Emigration to America Reviewed Liverpool by 1827 had become the dominant emigrant port for America and particularly convenient from Dublin, while Connacht Irish also voyaged regularly to Liverpool from Drogheda (Smyth 2012, 60).
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