APPENDIX
APPENDIX
The following letter from Miss Maude Divine, a granddaughter of my mother's Aunt Susan, gives a little different account of the events of Benjamin Osler's life, as her mother knew them. She says:
"Our great-grandfather, Benjamin Osler, was a merchant in Gibraltar and Cadiz from about 1814. Not doing well, he decided to try trading to the West Indies, and bought a small vessel and fitted it with merchandise. His son, Joseph, who had been a midshipman in the Navy, went with him, but died at Trinidad of yellow fever. On the way home, grandfather's vessel was seized by a French privateer, and he was imprisoned, where he remained some time, unable to communicate with his family. Finally they received information of his whereabouts, through the Free Masons, and an exchange of prisoners being arranged, he came home, a helpless cripple.