I am totally in awe of Maureen's ability to locate a reference to a woman who died at sea in 1806 and whose body was preserved in spirits until it could be buried at St. Helena many months later. I now have a photocopy from the ship's journal which records the death of George Cumming. The captain, Patrick Clark, has an execrable handwriting and his meaning is not perfectly clear to me. He says (under 23 December) "at 9 p.m. departed this life Mr. George Cumming in the civil service of the HEIC" A few lines later he writes "sealed up the effects of Mr. Cumming in the presence of the Gentlemen on board." So far so good, but it gets tricky on the next page, which is divided into four columms. The first column lists the names of the passengers. The second is called "when came on board." The third is "when left ship." The fourth is "where left." For George Cummings, under "when left ship" he writes Dec. 24th. Under "where left" he writes "at the Cape of Good Hope on board of a Danish Ship." Does this mean that the sealed up effects were transferred to the Danish ship or that the sealed effects and the body were transferred to the Danish ship? I am also wondering what these effects might have been. The EIC company ships were small and the Anna was very small. He couldn't have taken verymuch with him and I am pretty sure he knew he was not long for the world. I am presuming that his effects were money, some personal items like letters, some clothing. Or was there space somewhere on the boat for trunks? Would anybody have more solid information about what others took with them on these long homeward bound voyage at this point in time? Best, Frances