Fateful Voyage

Heywood Manuscript

The Heywood Manuscript Letters have been uploaded to the website.

Heywood Manuscript

I’ve completed the indexing and when I get links updated on existing pages, should be uploading everything later today. I’ll post when I’ve done it.

Of course I’ve put off updating the databases for who people are and where places are, but I’m behind on that already - it’s on my to do list.

Heywood Manuscript

I’ve done the housekeeping & indexed the first 23 files. It has not gone easily. The housekeeping turned out to be a breeze. Then I was in the middle of indexing the 8th file when I noticed that I wasn’t getting the output that I needed. Fortunately, when I index, I don’t make entries to the various Find Stuff databases directly, but accumulate sql statements for each one in a text box and if all goes well, execute the statements which puts the info in the DB’s. The problem was, it wasn’t adding the tag to the file paths.

<a name=”h001”></a>Peter Heywood’s mother…

so if this was in the file ‘../heywood/letterbook/h008.html’, the file path to it would be ‘../heywood/letterbook/h008.html#h001’.

So in all the work I had done, the ‘#xxxx’ part was missing. Now that would work, but it would just take you to the page, not the place on the page, where what you’re looking for is.

The last time I did this was on Heywood’s Royal Naval Biography, and when I went and checked that, the last page is missing the tags also. Hmmph. So, rather than try to figure out what was wrong, I inserted a couple of lines of code in strategic places, bypassing the code that wasn’t working, and simplifying the indexing process in the bargain. I also added a couple of aids I’d had on the drawing board and had never got around to.

So, now in addition to these manuscript pages, I have to fix the Royal Navy Biography page. One of the drawbacks to databases is, that errors are very difficult to fix. For the RNB page, there are 105 entries in the people database alone. Trying to fix them would be a nightmare. The solution is to delete all entries in all DB’s with that file path and reindexing the page.

Heywood Manuscript

Well, it did take a while, a month, but the transcribing is done; there are 125 content files, plus the index page.

Unlike the Providence material, these pages have to be indexed and have the unfamiliar word popups added.

There’s some housekeeping that has to be done before I can do that. After that’s done I have to add the pages to the ‘What’s Here” page and the ‘Sitemap’ page. After everything’s done and I upload them, I have to add them to Google’s sitemap file, upload that and resubmit it, and done!

All this should not take as long as the transcription.

Heywood Manuscript

90 Letters completed, the last dated October 7, 1792, from Peter Heywood to his sister Nessy. The court-martial has come and gone, but the pardons have not been handed down and Peter and the other mutineers are still imprisoned aboard the Hector.

Nessy and Peter’s elder brother James have come down to London from the Isle of Man in anticipation of seeing him, but Peter has told Nessy in no uncertain terms, repeated in the above letter, that she is not to come anywhere near the ship. James, however, does go down to Portsmouth and visits his brother aboard the Hector.

Heywood Manuscript

51 Letters completed. Well, I wasn’t going to include the poems, but I’ve decided that when they are referenced in a letter, I should include them with that letter. The compiler of the manuscript, Mary Heywood, has helpfully included a page number when a poem is mentioned. The page numbers are not easy to read as they are small and in the top corner of the page, which gets the most wear.

For example, there are two poems included with letter 51, one by Nessy, and a mini-epic of some 60 verses, ‘A Dream,’ by Peter.

Heywood Manuscript

27 letters completed. I’ve discovered that one of the letters I have on the site, from Peter Heywood to his mother from Batavia, is incomplete. I suspect others will be as well, as my source for them was a book about Nessy Heywood by A. W. Moore and the author apparently edited them before including them.

Heywood Manuscript

I’ve finished the index page, added a little who’s who for the writers and recipients, made some adjustments to my editing program, and started transcribing the letters. There are actually 118, two are numbered 34.

Heywood Manuscript

I’ve put the ebooks on hold as I’ve received jpeg images of the Heywood Manuscript from the State Library of New South Wales. The manuscript is a collection of poetry and letters of the Heywood family. The letters are primarily concerned with Peter Heywood and his appearance at the court-martial of the Bounty mutineers. I already have a few of these letters on the site, but this collection contains 117 letters between various family members and friends and is fairly complete. These are not the original letters, but copies made by Mary Heywood, Peter’s older sister. The letters are numbered 1 through 117 and there a few remarks by Mary and a couple of things written by Peter. I’m going to include everything but the poetry. It will take a while.