ON BOARD A BRITISH FRIGATE
It is impossible to give any adequate picture of the days which
immediately followed. The horror of them is still upon me as I write.
There are dangers which call out the best in man, which arouse all his
faculties to face and overcome them; there are others that paralyze the
arm and numb the brain and stupefy the soul. The danger before us was
of this latter class. For an hour after I entered that room and learned
the situation I sat dazed and stolid, and my men were in no better
condition. We were hopeless.
It is said you can become accustomed to anything. Possibly that is
why my companions at length began to stir and speak. It was their
reproaches that aroused me. “Why had we not fought the enemy on the
deck of the _Martha_, and ended our lives there, instead of foolishly
surrendering her, and dying here in this foul pen?” they were saying.
They did not hesitate to throw the blame on me. Stung to the quick,
I sprang to my feet. I threw off the lethargy I was in, and I said
resolutely:
“Comrades, do not be unreasonable. You know I acted for the best when I
surrendered the _Martha_. I did as any other wise commander would have
done under the same circumstances. Let us suppose we had fought; some
of us would have survived the conflict and been thrust in here to meet
the same foul conditions. Can we tell which of us it might have been?
Would we have been any better prepared to face the situation than now?
Here we are all well and strong. Let us arouse ourselves. Let us do for
these suffering men around us all we can do. Not every one who has the
smallpox dies with it. Let us face this foe as we would any other, and
endeavor to conquer it; and if we do go down before it, let us die as
we would on a ship’s deck--like men, doing our duty for ourselves and
others.”
I did not have to make a second appeal. A ringing “Aye, aye, sir!”
followed my speech, and then the lads crowded about me asking what they
should do.
“First, we’ll find who these suffering men are and how we can help
them,” I answered. “Then we’ll see if we cannot clean up this foul pen,
and make it more habitable. The disease will not rage so severely where
there is no filth, I’ve been told; and it may be I can prevail upon the
prison authorities to furnish us with clean beds and proper medical
attendance. Rest assured I’ll do all I can to bring about a better
condition of things here.”
“That you will, sir,” they responded, and turned with me to attend to
the sick ones about us.
As I had expected, we found them all Colonial prisoners. Some had been
there for weeks, others like ourselves were newcomers. Two weeks before
one of their number had come down with the smallpox, and the case had
been promptly reported to the prison officials. The only thing that
had been done by them, however, was to put a man in charge of the room
who was an immune, and to bury the dead--for four of their number had
already died from the disease.
I found the only thing we could do for the present was to place the
suffering men in easier positions, and moisten their parched lips with
the scanty supply of water at our command. But later, when the turnkey
came--an old fellow, deaf and gruff and indifferent to our condition--I
appealed to him to ask the superintendent of the jail to furnish us
with implements for cleaning up the room, and with clean clothing for
the sick, and with medical care.
He demurred, saying: “They won’t do nothin’ for ye. They’d rather ye’d
die here like rats in a hole.”
Then I grew angry. “Tell him,” I exclaimed, “that there is an officer
in here who is not going to die with the disease, and as sure as he
lives the home government shall know. Yea, the whole civilized world
shall know how he is treating men whose only fault is that they are
prisoners.”
There must have been something in my looks or tones that startled
him, for he shuffled away down the corridor, and going to the prison
officials made known my demands, repeating word for word what I had
said. The result was we were furnished with shovels, brooms, pails and
water in abundance, and before night our quarters were clean.
A week passed, however, without any of my other demands being met. Six
more men died, and were wrapped in their blankets, and carried away to
their burial. Ten more of the men had come down with the contagion. The
time was fast approaching when the disease might be expected to appear
among my own crew. We needed everything--beds, clothing, better and
more food, and medicine. In my desperation I grew cunning. From a piece
of wire I found in the possession of one of the men I manufactured a
key, with which I could unlock our door.
I knew it only allowed me to enter the outside corridor, but even that
circumstance I believed I could use to our advantage. Our turnkey was
in the habit of communicating with us by a small opening in the door.
In fact, the door had been thrown wide open but once since we had
entered the prison--the day we had cleaned the room, and then four
soldiers, all immunes, had stood in the passageway with loaded muskets
to prevent our escape. Usually, however, the attendant came to the door
alone.
With this fact in mind, near the noon hour I unlocked the door and
waited. As soon as I heard the footsteps of the old man outside, I
suddenly threw the door open, and sprang out upon him. He was so
surprised I had no difficulty in catching him by the shoulders.
“Now lead me to the office,” I demanded.
“But you mustn’t go there, sir,” he cried in alarm. “I’m told not so
much as to let you into the corridor. You’ll give the disease to the
officials and the other prisoners.”
“That is just what I propose to do,” I retorted, shaking him as a
terrier would a rat. “If we are not given clean beds and clothing and
medicine, we’ll tear this building down inch by inch; we’ll scatter the
germs of the smallpox on the air. Some of us may die in the attempt,
but not until we have infected the whole town. So lead on or I’ll
throttle you!”
My loud voice and his equally loud remonstrances reached the ears of
the superintendent, as I had intended they should, and he now peeped
into the corridor to see what the trouble was. Catching enough of my
words to comprehend both my demands and my threats, he called out:
“Don’t come down here, sir! Let the turnkey go, and I’ll do what you
say. The things shall be sent you at once.”
I looked doubtfully at him. “I don’t know whether to believe you or
not,” I then said slowly.
“I’ll keep my word. I’ll send men at once with the things, and they’ll
bring your old ones away, and burn them. Only go back into your room
and stay there.”
“I’ll try you this once,” I finally decided, releasing the turnkey.
“But mark you, if you fail me, there’ll be the hottest time in this
old jail you ever saw. We can get out of the room when we please, and
as I said, we may die in the attempt, but it will not be until we have
exposed lots of you to the foul disease from which we are suffering,”
and I went back into the room.
He kept his word in part. The clean beds and clothing were brought,
but we received no medical care or supplies, and so the next morning I
repeated that part of my demand.
“The superintendent told me to tell you that he was trying to find a
physician for you,” the attendant said tremblingly, “but so far every
one in town has refused to come here.”
Another week passed. Eight more of the lads had ended their sufferings,
and seven new cases of the disease had developed--among them three of
my own men: Midshipman LeMoyne, Quartermaster Mohyes, and Elias Bowden,
an old sailor.
Of the original prisoners--those in the room at our coming--there were
only six surviving, so terrible had been the ravages of the scourge
among them. Would there be as great a loss among my crew? I feared it,
and though at that time of my life I was not much given to prayer, I
now prayed:
“O, Lord, spare my men. Send us help in some way. We are in sore need.”
Over and over again I repeated the words, and in some way they gave me
great comfort. I felt the help was coming, but I acknowledge it came
in a way I little expected. The next morning there were hurried feet
along our corridor, then the door suddenly swung back, and the funniest
little Frenchman I ever saw popped in.
Short and fat, and dressed in the height of fashion, he bowed
repeatedly first to one, then to another of us, all the while talking
in a strange mixture of good French and poor English. Between it all we
made out that he was Doctor Jean Vignor, who had landed in the town the
previous day. Learning by the merest accident of our situation, he had
deemed it a great privilege to volunteer his services for our relief.
The prison authorities had consented, and there he was to take the
cases in hand.
“The leetlepox is nothing,” he declared with a majestic wave of the
hand. “I have the remedy to cure, and the remedy to stop it;” and then
he began to examine his patients.
He went from one to the other, nodding his head approvingly to some,
and shaking his head seriously at others, and administering medicine
to all. When the round was made, he came to me, whom he seemed to
recognize as chief, saying:
“I cure him, and him, and him, and him,” pointing out the men as he
spoke; “him and him and him I no cure.”
With a heavy heart I noticed that the three whom he had designated as
beyond the reach of his healing powers were my own comrades. He now
did what seemed to me a strange thing. He made every well man among
us march up before him, and lancing a place in the arm he rubbed in a
thick fluid which he took from a small vial in his case.
“You have not the pox now, or else have it light,” he explained. “My
friend Doctor Jenner of London is what you call experimenting with it.
Some day it will make him famous. He calls it vaccine.”
I now know he had vaccinated us--a common thing today, and a discovery
which, as the Frenchman predicted, has made Doctor Jenner’s name well
known the world over--but we had never heard of the process before, and
could not appreciate its value then as we did a little later.
So droll was our new friend that he cheered our hearts; so well did he
seem to understand the dread disease with which he battled that he
inspired our confidence; so strong was his influence with the prison
authorities that he secured from them whatever he felt his patients
needed; so completely did he transform our prison life that it seemed
as though the sun had come out from the thick clouds and was sending
its healing beams upon us. The only sadness that came to me while he
was with us was the death of the three comrades whose cases he had at
the very outset pronounced incurable. Even then he did all he could
to comfort me, and obtained permission from the officials for me to
accompany them to and mark their graves.
Of the remainder of our crew three did not have the smallpox at
all--William Goss, Richard Webber, and myself--due, Doctor Vignor said,
to the great sores which formed upon our arms. The others had the
disease, but so lightly they were scarcely indisposed.
“It’s the vaccine,” declared the physician.
“Then you should proclaim your remedy to the world,” I insisted.
He shook his head. “That is my friend’s work,” he explained. “He told
me of this, and I will not steal his honor. In due time he will give it
to the world.”[A]
In a month the last case of the disease had disappeared, and our room
had been thoroughly cleansed and fumigated.
“It’s time for me to go,” our good friend now announced, “and I wish I
could take you all with me.” Then lowering his voice he added:
“I go to your country to be a surgeon in your army. I’ll tell them of
you, and have them arrange an exchange.”
About the first of June I thought he had accomplished his desire, for
a British officer came to our room, and looking us all over, asked our
names, and the station in which we had served. Then he said:
“Arthur Dunn, William Goss, and Richard Webber are to come with me.”
“Are you sure that is all who are to go?” I questioned, reluctant to
leave a single man behind.
“It is all who are to go now,” he replied curtly. “The others may be
sent for later.”
Thus reassured we, the fortunate three as we thought, bade our comrades
good-bye, and with exultant hearts followed the officer from the room.
Once in the street, he led us down to the wharf where a yawl was in
waiting.
“Get in,” he commanded, and, still thinking that we were to be taken
to some vessel where our exchange was to be effected, we obeyed with
alacrity.
The men at the oars pulled us off towards a large frigate well out in
the harbor. Soon we were where I could obtain a good view of her.
“The _Saint George_!” I exclaimed, recognizing the frigate on which I
had served as a midshipman before the war with the colonies. Then, too,
like a flash it dawned upon me that my comrades and myself were not to
be exchanged; but were to be pressed into the English naval service.
FOOTNOTE:
[A] Dr. Jenner did this a few years later.