They were destined for a new colony in South America but with just a week to go before departure, it seemed unlikely that the loading of the ship could be completed in time unless the storm abated quickly. He was the captain of the Kennersley Castle, an armed merchantman, due to sail on 14 January carrying nearly 200 passengers and a year's supplies. In the comparative calm of the port of Leith, on the Firth a mile from Edinburgh, Henry Crouch watched the weather with anxious eyes. A local packet boat, the Betsy Crook, almost made it to the Firth of Forth, but was blown on to rocks and wrecked at the entrance to Crail harbour, below Fife Ness. The American ship Elizabeth, out of Boston, running for shelter off the Scottish coast, sank with all hands, while just a single survivor was washed ashore from the Russian vessel Eolus when she went down. Scotland suffered the worst of it, lashed by gales and snow that trapped people in their homes, brought mail deliveries to a halt, and made travelling by coach too dangerous even to think about. The new year of 1823 announced itself in violent fashion with a vicious storm that battered the east coast of Britain for a fortnight.
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