The Life and Adventures of John Nicol, Mariner

This is the autobiography of John Nicol (1755–1825), which was first published in 1822. This new edition has been prepared to give interested readers and historians a first-hand account of the life of an ordinary sailor at that time.

John Nicol was born in Edinburgh and, at a young age, he was apprenticed to a cooper. In 1776, he joined the Royal Navy, serving first on HMS Proteus in the North Atlantic and then on HMS Surprise. He left the navy at the end of the American War of Independence in 1783.

After jobs on various ships, in 1789, he was among the crew of the Lady Juliana, which was transporting over 200 female convicts to Australia. It was the practice of the crew to take a ‘wife’ from among the women on-board. Nicol’s partner, Sarah Whitlam, a convicted shoplifter from Lincoln, gave birth to their a son during the voyage. After the ship’s arrival at Sydney in 1790, the family was separated and Nicol never saw Sarah or his son again. The day after Nicol’s departure, Sarah married another man. 

In 1794, Nicol was seized by a Royal Navy press gang, and subsequently ended up fighting at the battles of Cape St Vincent and the Nile on HMS Goliath.

After again being discharged from the Royal Navy, he returned to Scotland, married his cousin, and worked as a carpenter. Nervous of being caught by a press gang for a second time, he left Edinburgh and moved to rural Scotland. When he grew too old to be at risk of the press gang, he travelled to London in to claim his service pension, but he was unable to receive this. He returned to Scotland where he eked out a poor existence.

Nicol met John Howell (1783–1863) in 1822 and it was Howell who took down Nicol’s narrative and arranged for the publication of his life story.