They are forbid by Law all Extortion, and all the Profit they have is only one Penny more in the Pound than the ordinary Tariffes allow, as settled from Time to Time by the Officers of the City.
It is not however prohibited to others, and such as are concerned with the Passengers to furnish them Victuals, provided all passes through the Prior’s Hands, and none of the Rules of Precaution are eluded: The Prior’s superintend these Victuallers, to prevent Fraud; and if such Exactness is observed, that Passengers suffer no Inconvenience or Uneasiness, still a greater Attention is exerted, if by Chance any one of them should be sick: For the Prior must forthwith declare the Case; and the First Physician of the Magistrate is immediately sent to, and the most scrupulous Observation is made of any Disorder, whose Symptoms should be doubtful. The same Rule is observed towards any Sick in the Ships; the Patient growing worse, nothing is with-held for preparing him to die well; there being a Church in the Lazaretto, &c. If the Sick would dispose of any of their Effects, the Priest that serves for Chaplain, acts as a Notary in Default of the Prior; but he cannot be appointed either Executor, or Heir, no more than any other Officer of the Lazaretto; and they only can serve as Witnesses: But if the dying Person should desire a Publick Notary, it is granted by the Magistrate, whenever the Times and Conjunctures will allow of it.
Every Death must be immediately communicated, though it be of a known Distemper; nor can the Corpse be moved, until (even after Death) it has been visited by the Chief Physician, to see if any Pestilential Marks were come out upon it: It is buried in a Church-yard belonging to the Lazaretto: And in Burying, no Hands are employed, but those in the same Quarantine he died in, digging a Hole at least two Fathom deep.
Such Circumspection is used, if the Distemper and the Death proceed from natural Causes: But the least Appearance of any Thing infectious, makes it much greater; for as soon as ever it is known, the sick Person is separated from the others in Quarantine with him, who are obliged to begin again a more rigorous Quarantine; dividing them as much as possible one from the other; which, in Case of another Accident, is to become a Third Quarantine for every one. And the sick Person being assisted with the utmost Caution and Care, the Corpse is buried in Lime. Those that die in the Ship are buried in the same Manner. Of all that belongs to the Deceased, the Prior takes an exact Inventory in Presence of the Guardian, and two or three Witnesses; which is adjudged by the Magistrate to the lawful Heirs. On Board the Ships, the Guardians do those Parts.
Having succinctly related the Duties of the Prior, which principally consist in seeing the Rules kept up to, and good Order observed; in which is comprehended the Care of keeping the Peace in the Lazarettos; of taking all Arms from Passengers, and having them separated from what they were lapt up in, and kept to be restored them at their going out; in forbidding all noisy Sports, and especially such as might occasion any Mixture amongst the People in Quarantine; in seeing that the Guardians, Bastazis, and Victuallers, do their Duty, without using Extortion, &c. That all Animals, whether Quadrupeds or Fowls, be shut up, which might straggle, and occasion Disorder. It remains to say something of the Quality of the Purifications used in the Lazarettos; that being a Point not to be by any Means omitted, and may not be a little tedious, as the Detail of them cannot be concise.
Resuming therefore the Idea already mentioned, of deducing the general Conduct from a particular one, and returning to where the Merchandize was left, when brought out of the suspected Ship, viz. to the Gates of the Lazarettos, with all the Precautions aforesaid; they are by the Fante, who escorts them, delivered up to the Prior of the Lazaretto, with the Order that directs him to receive them. He directs a Place for their Purification; directs the Bastazi, appointed for that Work, to take them out of the Boat, and the Guardian to keep them in his Custody; then causing the Peata that brings them, to carry them to the Shore most convenient for their Landing at the Place where they are to be purified; they are unloaded by the Bastazi, who, from that Moment, together with the Guardian, are looked upon as unclean, and can have no Communication of any Sort. As many as are unloaded, a Note is taken of, and so successively till the Ship is quite cleared.
It has been said, that generally the Clerk of the Ship, or the Super-Cargo, or always one of the Ship, passes with the Merchandize to the Lazaretto, to make the Delivery of them; and the Reason of it is, to take back a Receipt from the Bastazi for all that was delivered to them, that the Whole may be restored, out of Regard to the Rules of the Health-Office, and for the Sake of Punctuality.
The Ship being entirely unloaded, they proceed to dispose the Goods in proper Places, with the necessary Distinctions: The Wool, (which is to be purified with the Forms called à Monte) in one Place, and what it is lapt up in, in another; the Cottons all in one Line; these made with Thread (or Linnens) in another; the Skins for Leather in another Part; and so every Head of Merchandize, separated from others, of different Sorts; and when all is thus disposed, every Thing is opened, and from that Day commences the Time of Quarantine; which always consists regularly of Forty entire Days, for Merchandizes coming from the Levant, and so for any others coming from Places much suspected; which is increased upon the Death, or Sickness, of any one of the Bastazis, which should give any Suspicion of Infection; or if any Thing of that Kind appeared on the Ship, which had transported them. Thus from the very Day that the Unloading of the Ship terminates, the Quarantine of the Ship, and of the Crew, commences, and not otherwise.
That of the Passengers being sooner brought to a Conclusion, who, at first, pass into the Lazarettos with their own Wearing Apparel, as they by so doing gain the Time the Unloading of the Ship requires.