n houses, as
Vice-provincial, and remained about eighteen months. The United
States now forming a separate province and Father Bernard made
Provincial, he demanded Fathers Hecker and Walworth as his subjects,
and they were given to him.

A letter from Father Hecker announces his departure for New York as
fixed for some time in October, 1890; but delays occurred, and the
following is an extract from one to his mother, dated January 17,
1851; it says that the departure is fixed for some day the same month:

"Oh! may Almighty God prosper our voyage, and may His sweet and
blessed Mother be our guide and protector on the stormy sea. And may
my arrival in America be for the good of many souls who are still
wandering out of the one flock and away from the one shepherd! I hope
that to no one will it be of more consolation and benefit than to you,
my dearest mother."

The ship was named the _Helvetia_ and sailed from Havre the 27th of
January, the captain being a genuine down-east Yankee, and the crew a
mixed assortment of English and American sailors. Father Bernard's
party consisted of Fathers Walworth, Hecker, Landtsheer, Kittell,
Dold, and Giesen, and the students Hellemans, Mueller, and Wirth, the
American fathers having come to Havre from London by way of Dover,
Calais, and Paris. The weather was unfavorable during nearly the
entire voyage, the ship being driven back into the English Channel
and forced to anchor in the Downs. They were beaten about for two
weeks before they got fairly upon the Atlantic, and while crossing
the Newfoundland banks were in danger from icebergs. Nearly all the
party were more or less sea-sick, including Father Hecker. This did
not prevent his attempting the conversion of the boatswain, who
seemed the only hopeful subject in the ship's company. There were a
hundred and thirty steerage passengers, emigrants for the most part
from Protestant countries, though a party of Garibaldian refugees and
a few equally wild Frenchmen enlivened the monotony of sea-life by
some bloody fights. There were but two cabin passengers besides the
Redemptorists, and the former being confined to their staterooms by
nearly continual sea-sickness, the cabin was turned into a "floating
convent," to borrow Father Dold's expression in a long letter
descriptive of the voyage, given by Canon Claessens in his _Life of
Father Bernard._

The wintry and stormy voyage had already tested the missionaries'
patience for some we