From Guilford, Surrey, admitted in March 1818. This poor fellow had
been formerly a servant to a gentleman, a banker at Guilford, of
whom, even in his present state of derangement, he still speaks in
the strongest terms of respect, gratitude, and attachment. In this
gentleman’s service he bore the character of a faithful, active,
cleanly, and attentive domestic. But his manners in these respects
are now, like his mind, totally changed. He was afterwards servant
with another gentleman, a contractor in the Island of Jersey; and
next enlisted as a soldier, and served in Spain, Portugal, and
North America. He was discharged at the termination of the war, and
returned to Guilford, where he was first taken ill, and was sent to the
workhouse. According to his own statement, his illness at that time
was only bodily; but as he got better, being one day hungry, he tore
up his shirt, “to make the most of it,” as he says, and sent it out by
a boy to sell as old rags; in return for which the boy brought him a
two-penny loaf and twopence-worth of tobacco. From the circumstance of
thus disposing of his shirt, the overseers deemed him mad, and ordered
him to be secured in a straight-waistcoat. This set him mad in earnest:
he became violent, and was ultimately sent to this hospital, where he
is now deemed incurable.
Though he has some lucid intervals, his time from morning to night is
usually spent in lamenting his misfortunes. The principal object of his
anxiety and affection is a daughter, whom, he says, he had formerly
by a young woman at Guilford. He describes her as a beautiful girl of
twenty; and says that she supposes her father dead. It was after her
birth that he went to Jersey, which led to all his misfortunes.
From these distracting reflections he will suddenly start off into
the most wild and heterogeneous flights of fancy and incoherent
nonsense; more especially after he uses much tobacco, of which he
is inordinately fond, and which intoxicates and excites him like
opium or spirits. Sometimes he supposes the world not thicker than a
half-crown, and expects every moment that all things will perish. He
imagines that whatever he thinks of is immediately destroyed: or, as
he terms it, “thrown up.” In this notion he will often say “he has,
by thinking of it, destroyed America, and has just thrown up Jersey,
and France, and Spain, and Portugal, and all the monkeys at Gibraltar,
and Plymouth-Dock, and Battle in Sussex and Hastings; that he has
cut up Mrs. Such-an-one’s hen-roost, and Mr. Such-an-one’s pig-stye
at Guilford; and that his poor, dear Guilford, where his good and
worthy friends Mr. H---- and his family lived, is now no more.” But he
declares he cannot help all this destruction, for, in spite of all he
can do, whatever he thinks of is instantly destroyed.
The next day he will try to remedy the mischief and misery he has
produced by thinking; and with his eyes closed, his body bent double,
and his hands and arms extended in front, like one groping in the
dark, he will exclaim: “I never thought of America, nor Jersey, nor
France, nor Spain, nor Portugal, nor Plymouth-Dock. I never thought
of a pig-stye, nor of Guilford. Oh, poor Guilford! and poor, good Mr.
H---- (his former master). I never thought of a ploughshare, nor yet
of a knapsack, nor yet of a summer-house, nor a spicket and fosset,
nor a monkey’s-beard, nor a hen’s-foot, nor a finger-organ, nor a
boar’s-bristle: I never thought of a parson, nor yet of a hedge-hog,
nor of a flying-squirrel in America; nor yet of a monkey shaving
himself, nor of the hinges of Mr. H----’s cellar-door, nor of the river
of Polinac, in France, where I sailed from;” with innumerable other
topics equally wild. But when his poor, distracted mind is quite tired
out with such exertions, he usually concludes the day by more calm, but
pathetic reflexions on his beloved daughter. “Ah! my poor, dear girl!
could I but once see you, I should then die contented!” and instantly
bursts into tears. After he retires to bed, the first two hours are
generally devoted to curses and execrations “on the authors of his
confinement; and of his separation from his dear, delightful daughter,
his home, and his every comfort and happiness.”
What a task would it be for the metaphysician to analyze the structure
of such a mind, or disentangle the confusion of its ideas!
Though he has been sometimes violent in the paroxysms of his disorder,
he is in general perfectly harmless.