by Roy Adkins
the fever produced by the impure air of marshes may not appear for many days after the noxious principle, whatever it is, has been imbibed; men having been sometimes seized with it more than a week after they had been at sea. It naturally occurs, therefore, that something may be done in the intermediate time to prevent the effects of this bad air; and nothing is more advisable than to take some doses of Peruvian bark, after clearing the bowels by a purgative.71
Without understanding malaria, they had discovered that bark was effective at preventing and treating the disease. In November 1805, the surgeon Francis Spilsbury was on board the Favourite sloop, which was accompanying a convoy to Africa. When they went on shore in what is today Senegal, the men were given bark, but Spilsbury was unconvinced, thinking that it used up their supplies far too quickly: ‘Here we first began to give our men bark in wine; a glass before they went, and another when they returned, under the idea of preventing fever. Whatever medical gentlemen may think of this practice, I shall call it a hocus-pocus mode of driving away fever.’72 In his opinion it was much better to give the men bark once they had fallen ill. Many years before, in 1774, Surgeon Robert Robertson on board the Rainbow in the West Indies took a different view: ‘Employed in watering the ship. The waterers get the tincture of bark in the morning’,73 and for the next two days: ‘Gave the waterers tincture of bark’.74 He used bark to prevent illness and to treat sick seamen and concluded that it was often effective, but such new remedies that were not understood were slow to be accepted.
So poor was the comprehension of the causes of diseases that a single remedy was believed to be capable of treating all manner of unrelated illnesses like scurvy and venereal disease. Local and national newspapers frequently carried advertisements such as one in a West Country newspaper in 1809 that proclaimed the wonders of Wessels Jesuit Drops:
IN HIS MAJESTY’S NAVY, these Drops have for near 100 years past maintained their Character as a specific for the Scurvy, Gravel, Dropsy, Stranguary, Weakness and Obstruction, in the Urinary Passage; and general debility; but particularly for their absolute and speedy Cure on the first attack of the Venereal Disease. Wessels Jesuit Drops and Specific Remedy, are the only safe and expeditious Cure from the first stage of Venereal Infection to the last stage of confirmed Lues, and are so innocent in their nature, as to require little or no restraint. As a restorative for general Debility, Wessels Jesuit Drops have been long known and esteemed whether the debility arises from too copious use of Mercury, from excess of Venery, or intense heat of climate, they are equally serviceable: – such as have the misfortune to be troubled with old stubborn Gleets, Seminal Effusions, or any weakness of the Kidneys, Ureters or Bladder Diabete, or difficulty in making water, will experience a compleat cure by due perseverance. Shaw and Co. 66, St. Paul’s Church Yard, having purchased these medicines of Mr Wessel, none can possibly be genuine unless a black Stamp engraved Shaw and Edwards, successors to Joseph Wessels, appears on the out-side of every bottle. Ask for Wessel Jesuits Drops with a black stamp. Price 2s 9d. – 11s. and 22s per bottle.75
Surgeons’ journals are full of records of men suffering from venereal disease (‘the itch’ or ‘the pox’ to the seamen) along with the remedies, such as John De Venner, a seaman aged twenty-one, who was recorded as having ‘Swelled testicle and gonorrhoea. Bled. Purged. Fomentations. Nitrous draught. Astringent injections.’76 Up to 1795 infected men were charged 15 shillings by the surgeon for treatment, which frequently involved mercury, but payment was abolished as it deterred them from reporting their condition. Writing in 1773, the Rainbow’s surgeon Robert Robertson reckoned that ‘Seamen on board of his majesty’s ships are so desirous to save their fifteen shillings, that by taking medicines of each others prescriptions, and putting off time, three out of every four who complained on board the Rainbow had lues venera.’77 With their recourse to prostitutes, the men would have suffered all manner of conditions, including syphilis (usually referred to as lues venera) and gonorrhoea. When surgeons apparently cured patients, this more frequently reflected the natural progress of the disease.
At Spithead in May 1798, on board HMS Russell, the surgeon George Magrath despaired of the captain of marines, whom he calls Robert J—— and who was suffering from gonorrhoea. This was Marine Captain Robert Johnson, and Magrath described his condition in detail, along with his treatment, with the comment: ‘This gentleman has a girl on board, the same that communicated this disease, and although he is well aware that she is injured, he still continues to sleep with her, notwithstanding I have put him in the remembrance of what mischief she may do him. However he was deaf to all my arguments and still persists in keeping [her] on board.’78 Surgeon Lionel Gillespie witnessed something similar on board the Racehorse in 1787:
At this time there is on board here four prostitutes who have affected three or four persons, two with gonorhea and the rest with chancres and one has a crystalline – yet these women are seemingly well in health, are in good spirits and having been turned over from their first paramours are entertained by others who seem to remain unaffected by any syphilitic complaints. This seems to confirm me in the idea which I have formed of Lues Venera, that it depends on the state of the body of the person infected.79
On board the Unité in 1808, Robert Wilson was saddened by the death of William Thompson ‘who died this day after lingering for some time with the venereal which wore him down to a skeleton and then killed him. I am sorry to say, that previous to this man’s death, I myself heard him exclaim, “Well, I’ll get well soon, time enough at any rate by the time we go again to Malta and then I’ll have another rattle at a b—— of a w——.”’80
As well as venereal disease, all kinds of ulcers were a constant concern of surgeons. Captain Edward Brenton wrote a few years after the Napoleonic Wars that ‘The ulcer, when it has once got possession of a ship, is one of the most contagious and serious complaints to which seamen are liable. During the late war, the Northumberland had it to such a degree, that I think they were compelled to pay her off, that she might be cleansed from the infection. The loss of a limb was a very common occurrence from this complaint.’81 The men often had leg ulcers, which were open sores, inflamed and painful, and difficult to heal. In 1812 Edward Mangin was perturbed by some men in the sick-bay of the Gloucester suffering from ‘hideous ulcers (a general complaint) arising from bruises received in the course of their hard work, and exasperated by the damp in which they lie’.82
Men who were very ill or badly wounded could be transferred to hospital ships or hospitals on land. This was not necessarily in their best interests, according to Blane, who admitted they were then exposed to other diseases: ‘Crowding, filth, and the mixture of diseases, are the great causes of mortality in hospitals.’83 The two major hospitals in England were at Plymouth and Haslar at Portsmouth, with smaller establishments at other key coastal places like Yarmouth, Deal, Paignton, Dartmouth and Sheerness – Greenwich Hospital was an almshouse for pensioners, not a medical hospital. Overseas there were hospitals in the major ports like Gibraltar, Malta, Port Mahon at Minorca, Halifax in Canada, Cape of Good Hope, Madras, Antigua, Barbados and Bermuda. In addition, old ships were converted to hospitals in ports, while others were seagoing vessels that accompanied the fleets.
When the physician George Pinckard was shown round Haslar Hospital in 1796, he was greatly impressed:
I felt it an honor to England that so noble an institution should offer, to our brave tars, the comforts required in sickness … The hospital, like many others of this island, from the grandeur of the edifice, might be mistaken for a palace. It is built in an open, airy situation near the sea, at a short distance from Gosport. The sick are brought in boats, from the ships at Spithead, and, conveniently, received on shore at a landing place at the hospital. This great building, fitted for the accommodation of two thousand patients, together with houses for officers and the medical attendants, a chapel, a laboratory, a variety of offices, and thirty-eight acres of good past
ure land, belonging to the institution, is enclosed within a high brick wall, with iron-gates, and a porter’s lodge at the entrance, which no stranger is permitted to pass, without the leave of one of the resident lieutenants.84
More to the point, none of the sick seamen was able to abscond from this secure hospital building.
Surgeons discharged to hospital those they could not deal with on board, and so Surgeon Robert Young of HMS Ardent let several men go to sick quarters at Great Yarmouth in June and July 1797, since they lacked ‘any prospect of being cured on board’.85 His discharged men had all manner of conditions, such as Alexander Mitchell, a seaman suffering from insanity, Charles Cain, a seaman with a maimed hand, John Halloran, a marine with venereal disease, and even the surgeon’s mate, John Todd, with scurvy – increasing Young’s shortage of assistants during the Battle of Camperdown a few months later. After that battle Young was understandably proud of his achievements, since he was able to discharge to hospital several men whom he had successfully treated: ‘I have the satisfaction to say that of those who survived to undergo amputation or be dressed, all were found next morning in the gun room, where they were placed, in as comfortable state as possible, and on the third day were conveyed on shore in a keel in good spirits cheering the ship at going away, smoking their pipes and jesting as they sailed along and answering the cheers of thousands of the populace who received them on Yarmouth key [quay].’86
Men who died were rarely accorded special treatment like Nelson, whose body was brought back to England in a barrel of alcohol (spirits of wine topped up with brandy). Keeping a body on board until it could be buried in consecrated ground was generally not practical in the days before refrigeration. Nelson’s body fared badly, as the surgeon William Beatty described in a private letter written to Reverend Scott in December 1805 while still on board the Victory:
The remains of the late Lord Nelson are perfectly plastic, and in such a state of preservation from being completely saturated with the strong spirit in which they have been so long immersed, that embalment is rendered not only unnecessary, but the process if undertaken may be attended with the unpleasant circumstance of the skin coming off the body when the wrappers and bandages with which it is surrounded are removed. The features being lost, the face cannot with propriety be exposed during the time which the body may lay in state.87
A few weeks after the failed Dardanelles attack in 1807, Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Louis died suddenly on board the Canopus off Alexandria in Egypt. It was decided to send his body to Malta, and the surgeon Abraham Martin described his embalming process: ‘The stomach, intestines and spleen were removed and other sound viscera as well as the abdomen were well washed with spirits and sprinkled with nitre and camphor. Hemp soaked in spirits was also put in the cavity in place of the unsound viscera that were removed and the abdomen sewn up with the glover’s suture.’88 Louis’s body was taken to Malta, where he was buried on Manoel Island. Vice-Admiral Collingwood, Nelson’s second-in-command at Trafalgar, died at sea on 7 March 1810, and his body was brought back to England to be buried near Nelson in St Paul’s Cathedral in London. Lord Eldon was moved by the emotions he observed: ‘I attended his funeral at St. Pauls, and was much affected by the grief manifested by some seamen who had served under him. I was a bearer, and a poor black sailor in tears laid fast hold of my arm, and attended almost the whole ceremony.’89
Sir Peter Parker’s body was also embalmed after he died during an attack on a camp near Baltimore on 31 August 1814. He was captain of the Menelaus frigate, and Midshipman Robert Barrett said that he ‘was adored by his officers and crew, [and] fell a victim to his unbounded zeal and devotion in the service of his country … he died as a British captain should do, cheering on his men against the enemy’.90 Barrett was from the Hebrus frigate, and after the failed attack on Baltimore the following month, he said,
it was arranged by the Commander-in-Chief … that the body of the late Capt. Sir Peter Parker, Bart., should be conveyed to the Island of Bermuda on board our ship the Hebrus … Having been ordered to the Menelaus on duty, previous to the removal of the corpse, I shall never forget how mournful and dreary was the appearance of all on board upon this melancholy occasion. It was reported, that it was with considerable reluctance the crew could be brought to acquiesce in the propriety of resigning the remains of their beloved commander to the custody of another ship. The body, having been embalmed, lay in state in the after-cabin … When I came forth from this melancholy scene, I beheld the stern and rugged visage of many a veteran tar moistened by a tear.91
When they reached Bermuda in October, Barrett recorded, ‘I had the honour of being midshipman of our launch, which conveyed the remains of Sir Peter Parker on shore, where they were interred at St. George’s, with the most distinguished military honours. His coffin was followed to the vault by all the public authorities in the island.’92 His body was subsequently taken to London and buried in the family vault at St Margaret’s Church at Westminster. This burial took place in mid-May 1815, as the Morning Post related:
Sir Peter had received in October last the honours of a public funeral at Bermuda, to which island his body had been carried from the Chesapeake in the Hebrus frigate … but it having subsequently been found to have been the wish of Sir Peter Parker, if he fell on service abroad, that his remains should be brought home and deposited in the vault of his family, the Hebrus was again entrusted with this melancholy freight … On the arrival of the Hebrus at Portsmouth, she was ordered round to Sheerness, from whence in the Admiralty barge the corpse was brought to Deptford on Saturday evening, attended by Captain Palmer, his officers, and a proportionate body of seamen, where it was received in the dock-yard with appropriate attention by the officers of government; and at half past five yesterday morning the Admiralty barge, with the Union Jack up, bearing the body on a military bier, resting on a platform surmounted by black feathers, appeared off Westminster-stairs, followed by three government barges, with pennants, containing the officers and seamen appointed to attend the ceremony. At six the boats drew up to the stairs, when the whole landed, and being met by the attendants and friends waiting on shore to join the naval procession, they proceeded to St. Margaret’s Church in the following manner:
Four Mutes.
Plumes of Black Feathers, with Pages to assist.
THE BODY
on a bier, carried on the shoulders of thirty seamen, preceded by Captain Palmer, in full uniform, and naval mourning; his lieutenants on each side, dressed in the same way, attended by three of Sir Peter’s late midshipmen, and his brave lieutenant Mr. Pearce.93
After listing various other mourners, the newspaper added: ‘Before reaching the church, they were received and joined by the Rev. Mr. Groves, who, heading the procession, conducted it to the church, where the ceremony was performed in a very impressive manner, and rendered additionally interesting by the novel and affecting sight of thirty-six British seamen ranged up the centre of the church on both sides of the bier, on which lay the sword and hat of the deceased, surmounted by the colours of the navy.’94
Officers were buried on land if at all possible, as happened with Lieutenant Lawry in November 1794. Aaron Thomas recorded the event in his journal:
Mr Lawry was buried in St John’s churchyard [Newfoundland] on the Monday after he was murdered. His body was removed from the Boston to the shore in the same boat in which he went to lose his life. His corpse was attended on the water by a boat from the Monarch, one from the Amphion, one from Pluto, one from Bonette, one from Lutine and two of our own boats. They contained every officer of the squadron. The boats took a circuitous route in the harbor and moved in a slow and solemn manner. On his coffin was placed his uniform hat, his sword and dirk. On landing at the King’s Wharf all the marines of the different ships, who had been previously landed, [and] the three companies of St John’s Volunteers received his body, which was carried to the place of interment in a great funeral parade, attended by all the captains of
the squadron and the principal officers, several gentlemen of the town, and all the officers and troops stationed here.95
Ordinary seamen who died were not accorded such special treatment. Instead, they were sewn up in their hammock, which was weighted with one or two cannonballs, and tipped into the sea with a short funeral service. Cornelia Knight recalled that Nelson referred to such a burial when he was asked what should be done with his amputated arm: ‘the Surgeon asked, if he should not embalm it, to send it to England to be buried; but he [Nelson] said, “throw it into the hammock, with the brave fellow that was killed beside me” – a common seaman’.96 Basil Hall explained the entire process:
Very shortly after poor Jack dies, he is prepared for his deep-sea grave by his messmates, who, with the assistance of the sail-maker, and in the presence of the master-at-arms, sew him up in his hammock, and having placed a couple of cannon-shot at his feet, they rest the body (which now not a little resembles an Egyptian mummy) on a spare grating. Some portion of the bedding and clothes are always made up in the package, apparently to prevent the form being too much seen. It is then carried aft, and, being put across the after-hatchway, the union jack is thrown over all. Sometimes it is placed between two of the guns, under the half deck; but generally, I think, he is laid where I have stated, just abaft the main-mast. Next day, generally about eleven o’clock, the bell on which the half-hours are struck is tolled for the funeral by one of the quartermasters of the watch below, or by one of the deceased’s messmates; and all who choose to be present assemble on the gangways, booms, and round the main-mast, while the fore-part of the quarter-deck is occupied by the officers.97
