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Evan Wilson, John McAleer. Atlantic Voyages: The East India Company and the British Route to the East in the Age of Sail., The American Historical Review, Volume 130, Issue 1, March 2025, Pages 434–435, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhae584
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When an East Indiaman departed Britain, many passengers felt strong emotions, ranging from regret and sadness to a recognition that the voyage they were embarking on would be a dividing line in their lives. When the ship reached the Bay of Biscay, seasickness was common. Those who recovered eventually developed routines to pass the time. They celebrated the first sight of land after leaving the English Channel—usually Madeira or Tenerife. They witnessed flying fish landing on deck; they endured the heat of the tropics; they marveled at the ceremonies crossing the equator. Further south, Cape pigeons followed the ship in strong winds and cold weather, before it finally rounded the Cape of Good Hope and entered the Indian Ocean.
As John McAleer admits toward the end of his introduction to Atlantic Voyages, this description applies to most voyages between Britain and India in the age of sail. Like Tolstoy’s happy families, most voyages were alike. But McAleer does not take that insight as a point of departure to emphasize the unhappy voyages—the mutinies, the hurricanes, the shipwrecks, or the encounters with French privateers. He recounts such happenings when appropriate, but he is most interested in “the quotidian experiences of those passengers who sailed the length of the Atlantic Ocean on their way to Asia” (6). He bounds his study in the age of sail, specifically on ships sailing to India (mostly but not exclusively East Indiamen), and specifically on the part of the voyage that took place in the Atlantic, both going and coming.
