Season One, Episode Seven
"Passage to Pernambuco"
The Onedins have finally made enough money to be able to buy their own house, and move out of the warehouse they've been living in, but James is off to Lisbon again. He leaves Anne with instructions to "have the banns read" (see under "History lessons") for Daniel and Elizabeth's wedding without delay, trusting no-one else in the family with such responsibility. Seemingly heedless of her plight though, and with not a thought for Fogarty in her mind, James's sister is again flirting with Frazer. He asks her to marry him, but she says she can't, though not why. He then floats the idea of their eloping, and the romantic in her is stirred.
She speaks to Anne, saying she is thinking of marrying, but Frazer, not Fogarty. She says she can say nothing about the child, and when it's born Albert will believe it his. The fatal flaw in this logic seems to escape her. In Lisbon, Senor Braganza shares his worries about the destruction of his vines, thanks to a ravenous beetle which eats the roots. He says it has already been causing devastation in France and he fears Portugal is next. He must somehow get new stock from the United States to graft onto his vines and protect them from the insect. But there are no ships available that can make the trip, and it needs to be one trip only; the
Charlotte Rhodes would need at least three. He mentions a ship called the
Pampero, which he had hoped would take the charter but it already has a cargo and is bound for Pernambuco, in Brazil.
James's mind is working. As the ship is already bound for the Americas, he tells Braganza to buy the ship, cargo and all. He will take half a share in it, sail it to the USA, sell the cargo and return with Braganza's vines within sixty days. He proposes a partnership, to run over five years, during which he and Braganza will split the profits of every voyage. James will try to buy Braganza's share out within five years, and if not then the wine merchant will become the sole owner of the ship and can sell it if he wants. If he succeeds though, Onedin will have a second ship in his fleet.
Before he can leave though some passengers come onboard, part of the original charter which James has now assumed ownership of. A Portuguese gentleman --- a
caballero --- and what look like his servants, dowdy and ill-fed and clothed mostly in rags in harsh contrast to the fine clothes of the gentleman. Onedin does not want them onboard but he has no choice, and so they set sail, bound for Pernambuco. Don Vasco, the gentleman, tells James that the other passengers who travel with him (and do not, certainly, eat as he does, at the captain's table and partaking of the finest wine) are troublemakers, criminals who are being transferred to the vineyards of his master in Brazil, as punishment for burning his vines in Lisbon.
The "criminals", however, tell a very different story to Baines, down in the hold. They say they owned the land they now have to work on as slaves, that the gentry took their vineyards and treated them like dirt. One of them, Felipo, has very good English, his grandfather having been a soldier serving in Wellington's army. He tells Baines they will kill Dom Vasco; they must, before he kills them as he killed his wife's father. But Baines warns them not to attempt it onboard the Onedin ship. Elizabeth sends word to say that she has taken up with Frazer, and Robert, seeing this as a better match, is happy to let it lie. He has convinced himself (as has Sarah) that the pregnancy was nothing more than "a young girl's fancy", that there was no baby orignally. Anne on the other hand is not fooled and does not agree with him. She calls him an ostrich, and so he is.
James decides, taking an instant dislike to Dom Vasco, to sail direct to Baltimore where they hope to sell the
Pampero's cargo. But the auction has been boycotted by the dealers, who have formed a cartel and make sure that nobody sells but through them. But James is never one to back down from a challenge, and he goes to see the master of the railroad, offering him his salt at a knockdown price, in return for labourers for one day to cut the wild vines that grow everywhere, and which no man can stop him from harvesting if he can muster the manpower. Soon he has all he needs but his plan backfires as his crew, enticed by the railroad and promises of riches and glory all desert. Now he has to try to recruit a new crew, but it's the same story everywhere. This is the age of railroad expansion in America, and everyone is working on the biggest project the country has seen in its history.
Once again though the canny shipowner has the answer. He asks Don Vasco's prisoners to serve onboard his ship, and when the
cabellero protests he has one final humiliation to heap upon him, making him the cook. Dom Vasco takes his revenge though, when the grain they're carrying catches fire, and as they try to dump it overboard he pushes Felipo in. Baines tries to save him but cannot, and the boy dies a painful horrible death. As they near Lisbon on the return trip, Dom Vasco gains a measure of his old swagger, knowing he will soon be in control again, and determined to make James pay for the insult he has paid him. However James has other ideas. He hails a passing Portuguese ship, and finds it is heading for Pernambuco. Telling Vasco that if he does not board the ship alone he will be open to charges of murder --- for which there are witnesses --- he forces the caballero to leave his prisoners behind, and they continue to Lisbon. It's small justice for Felipo, but it is justice.
QUOTES
James: "Robert has all the qualifications of a jellyfish and Sarah stops her ears at anything that smacks of an indelicate nature."
James: "Marry the master, not the servant, if marry you must".
FAMILY
ELIZABETH AND ALBERT
It would seem Daniel is now forgotten, no longer a part of Elizabeth's life, despite the fact that she knows she is carrying his child. She tells Anne that she only let him have his way with her because she felt sorry for him, and probably knew they would soon part. Her new plan, to marry Albert, seems to be working on the surface, and for once she could not be happier. Albert, of course, is beside himself with joy, even if his father does not seem to have taken to the young Onedin girl. For appearances' sake, Robert and Sarah go along with the idea that perhaps there
was no baby, that Elizabeth just imagined she was pregnant, and anyway, now things have worked out how they --- or more precisely, James --- wanted, and they have an alliance with Liverpool's biggest shipbuilder, which can surely only benefit the company as it grows.
ANNE
The only one to see disaster on the horizon is James's pragmatic wife. She is sure the pregnancy is real, and wonders what Albert will say when he finds out. She knows that the manipulative Elizabeth plans to pretend the child is his, but surely he will figure out that they have not been together long enough for that to be true? But she knows that in the end it is not her place to interfere; she tries to advise Elizabeth, to get her to see sense, but after all, if the girl's mind is made up there is little she can, or should try to, do to change it. It is, essentially, not her problem, and she has enough concerns of her own to be worrying about.
CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY
When faced with James's multiple instructions as to what he must do while his brother is at sea with the
Pampero, Robert is overwhelmed. He wonders where the money is supposed to come from to pay wages, buy cargo and send the
Charlotte Rhodes on its way again, fully provisioned and with a cargo that will bring profit. Anne proves to be the more business-minded, telling him that as he is a director of the Onedin Line he need only make out a draft on the company, she will advance him the money from the firm and the draft will be redeemed on James's return. As for cargo, she tells Robert he is after all a shopkeeper: "Buy large quantities of something you know to be in demand and ship it to a country in need", she tells him. Alan Sugar couldn't have distilled the simplest idea of trade down to its most basic components better himself.
HISTORY LESSONS
As Don Vasco basically sees and treats his prisoners like slaves, we are shown an uncomfortable reminder that such ideas are not as outdated as they seem, at least not in America. When they reach Baltimore Baines goes to paste up a poster advertising the sale of the cargo onboard their ship, and the notice he papers over with theirs is the offer of a reward for the return of an escaped slave ---- "Bears the mark of the lash," screams the notice, "Branded R". A cruel time.
There is also reference to the building of the first railroad across America, which changed the country forever (watch "The men who built America" for some great insights on this) and which has become the single largest employer in the country, so much so that James's own crew abscond to work on it. It would seem steam is certainly the future, at least in the New World: Frazer would surely approve.
Explanation of the phrase "read the banns" can be found here
Banns of marriage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
TIGHTFIST
Despite the gruesome death of Felipo, James is of course more aghast at the loss of a tenth of his grain, which will cost him about three thousand dollars, he calculates. Though he does cheer himself up with the thought that he will only have to bear half the loss, as Senor Braganza will be liable for the other half. "The man who expects to share in the profit", he philosophically tells Baines, "must also expect to share in the loss."
Anne lands Robert with a shock when he comes back from his less than successful trip to France with the linoleum he had bought, unable to shift it for much profit. She reminds him that they owe interest to the discount house, and the crew have yet to be paid, so small as the profit he has made is, it is in fact smaller than he thought it was. A shopkeeper he may be, but there's a lot more to trading than just running a shop, as he's beginning to realise to his chagrin.
James is annoyed when he arrives in Baltimore and finds he cannot sell his salt without dealing with the middlemen, who will of course take their cut. So he goes direct to the railroad, offering the man in charge a substantial discount, making a deal with him for labourers and also getting information as to where he can buy a thousand tons of grain cheap. The old maxim never fails: "deal not with the monkey but with the organ grinder!"