The importance that sailors attach to their provisions and stores is great and sometimes amusing. The Scarborough Barque Migrator, belonging to W and B Fowler and commanded by Captain Hargreave Potter (uncle of the present Captain Potter) was lying becalmed one day off the China coast, when a couple of piratical looking craft, full of men, were observed coming out from the land under sweeps. Captain Potter studied them very carefully through his glasses, and then, his worst fears confirmed, called the crew, and announced the approaching visitors, giving orders for the boats to be lowered, and telling them that as the pirates came up they would abandon ship, for a massacre would only result from resistance.
Hearing this, a cousin of mine, who was an apprentice onboard, said
"Pirates eh! Well they won't have my sugar"
and he dived below and quickly ate his weeks supply, which had been only that morning served out. He returned on deck, but happily a light breeze had sprung up, and the Barque managed to clear away, but my cousin had to do without sugar until the following saturday!
The above story appeared in a series of articles by Forrest Frank in 1920 in the Scarborough Daily Post - This story came from Captain Wyrill
