“I declare to you I can’t describe the agony I felt when my legs were burst; I fainted away over and over again. There was four men came; I was lying in my hammock, and they moved the fowl that was roasting, and put my legs in the oven. There they held me for ten minutes. They said, it would take the cold out; but after I came out the cold caught ’em again, and the next day they swole up as big round as a pillar, and burst, and then like water come out. No man but God knows what I have suffered and went through.
“By the order of the doctor at Valparaiso, the sick patients had to come out of the room I went into; the smell was so bad I couldn’t bear it myself—it was all mortification—they had to use chloride o’ zinc to keep the smell down. They tried to save one leg, but the mortification was getting up into my body. I got better after my legs were off.
“I was three months good before I could turn, or able to lift up my hand to my head. I was glad to move after that time, it was a regular relief to me; if it wasn’t for good attendance, I should not have lived. You know they don’t allow tobaccer in a hospital, but I had it; it was the only thing I cared for. The Reverend Mr. Armstrong used to bring me a pound a fortnight; he used to bring it regular. I never used to smoke before; they said I never should recover, but after I got the tobaccer it seemed to soothe me. I was five months and a half in that place.
“Admiral Moseley, of the Thetis frigate, sent me home; and the reason why he sent me home was, that after I came well, I called on Mr. Rouse, the English consul, and he sent me to the boarding-house, till such time as he could find a ship to send me home in. I was there about two months, and the boarding-master, Jan Pace, sent me to the consul.
“I used to get about a little, with two small crutches, and I also had a little cart before that, on three wheels; it was made by a man in the hospital. I used to lash myself down in it. That was the best thing I ever had—I could get about best in that.
“Well, I went to the consul, and when I went to him, he says, ‘I can’t pay your board; you must beg and pay for it;’ so I went and told Jan Pace, and he said, ‘If you had stopped here a hundred years, I would not turn you out;’ and then I asked Pace to tell me where the Admiral lived. ‘What do you want with him?’ says he. I said, ‘I think the Admiral must be higher than the consul.’ Pace slapped me on the back. Says he, ‘I’m glad to see you’ve got the pluck to complain to the Admiral.’
“I went down at nine o’clock the next morning, to see the Admiral. He said, ‘Well, Prince Albert, how are you getting on?’ So I told him I was getting on very bad; and then I told him all about the consul; and he said, as long as he stopped he would see me righted, and took me on board his ship, the Thetis; and he wrote to the consul, and said to me, ‘If the consul sends for you, don’t you go to him; tell him you have no legs to walk, and he must walk to you.’
“The consul wanted to send me back in a merchant ship, but the Admiral wouldn’t have it, so I came in the Driver, one of Her Majesty’s vessels. It was the 8th of May, 1852, when I got to Portsmouth.
“I stopped a little while—about a week—in Portsmouth. I went to the Admiral of the dockyard, and he told me I must go to the Lord Mayor of London. So I paid my passage to London, saw the Lord Mayor, who sent me to Mr. Yardley, the magistrate, and he advertised the case for me, and I got four pounds fifteen shillings, besides my passage to Glasgow. After I got there, I went to Mr. Symee a Custom-house officer (he’d been in the same ship with me to California); he said, ‘Oh, gracious, Edward, how have you lost your limbs!’ and I burst out a crying. I told him all about it. He advised me to go to the owner. I went there; but the policeman in London had put my name down as Robert Thorpe, which was the man I lodged with; so they denied me.
“I went to the shipping office, where they reckonised me; and I went to Mr. Symee again, and he told me to go before the Lord Mayor (a Lord Provost they call him in Scotland), and make an affidavit; and so, when they found my story was right, they sent to London for my seaman’s ticket; but they couldn’t do anything, because the captain was not there.