[1322] Ibid., cxl, 43.
[1323] State Papers, Dom., 17th Dec., 1657.
[1324] Add. MSS., 9304, ff. 133,135. It would not be just to pass from the subject of the aid afforded to the men in disease and suffering without some notice of Elizabeth Alkin, otherwise ‘Parliament Joan,’ who wore out health and life in their service. This woman appears to have nursed wounded soldiers during the civil war, for which she was in receipt of a pension, and, in February 1653, volunteered similar help for the sailors. She was then ordered to Portsmouth, and, in view of the before noticed condition of the town, must have found very real work to which to put her hand. If £325 went in one item to nurses there must have been plenty of a kind to be had; but she gave her heart to her helpless patients, and in June had spent not only all the government allowance but also her own money, as ‘I cannot see them want if I have it.’ She was then sent to Harwich, and on 22nd Feb. 1654 returned, weak and ill, to London, with only 3s remaining. Of the last £10 given to her she had spent £6 on the Dutch prisoners at Harwich: ‘Seeing their wants and miseries so great, I could not but have pity on them though our enemies.’ A week later she again appeals for at least an instalment of her pension, or to be sent to a hospital in which ‘to end my days less miserably,’ having been forced to sell even her bed. In May and September 1654, two warrants, each for £10, were made out, and her name does not occur again. Even these few data are sufficient to suggest the outline of a life of self-sacrifice, illumined by a native kindliness of heart and unsoured by religious fanaticism, of which there is not a trace in her letters.
[1325] State Papers, Dom., c, 139.
[1326] From seamen’s wages.
[1327] By estimation.
[1328] Average for three years, less taxes.
[1329] By estimation.
[1330] Add. MSS., 9305, 13th Jan. 1657.
[1331] State Papers, Dom., cxxv, 39, 11. Under Charles I, widows obtained donations from it, but no pensions.