DR. WOLCOT
In Jamaica Wolcot found that there was but little opportunity for him to earn much by his profession, and Sir William proposed to him to take Holy Orders, so that he might appoint him to the rich benefice of S. Anne in the island. Wolcot, without the smallest vocation for Orders, looking only to the monetary value of the living, practically a sinecure, returned home in 1769 and was ordained deacon 24 June in that year, and priest on the following day, by the Bishop of London. Thus equipped he returned to Jamaica in March, 1770, hoping to find the incumbent of S. Anne’s dead—he had left when the man was ailing. But to his vast disgust the rector of S. Anne’s had taken on a new spell of life, and did not at all see his way to vacate the fat benefice to oblige Wolcot. John Wolcot was now given the incumbency of Vere, but lived most of his time in the Governor’s house, leaving a hired deputy to perform the duties of his cure.
Finding that there was little prospect of getting S. Anne’s he threw aside his Orders, reverted to his profession, and was appointed Physician-General to the troops on the island 21 May, 1770. He lived on terms of close friendship with the Trelawny family, where his broad humour, his sarcastic sallies, and his witty stories made him a delightful companion at the table over the wine.
“I was invited,” said he, “to sup with a rich planter and his wife. During the repast, my friend desired a female slave in waiting to mix some toddy, on which the black girl, in her peculiar way, asked him if it was ‘to be drinkey for dry, or drinkey for drunkey.’ When our supper was ended, and our water being exhausted, the planter sent his wife a short distance from the house for a fresh supply. The thunder and lightning being excessive during her absence, I said to him, ‘Why did you not send that girl (the slave) for water on such a night as this, instead of exposing your wife to the storm?’ ‘Oh, no,’ replied he, ‘that would never do. That slave cost me forty pounds.’”
Miss Anne Trelawny was not a little simple and credulous, and Wolcot delighted in hoaxing her. On one occasion, he informed her that a cherub had been caught in the Blue Mountains, and had been put in a cage with a parrot. Before morning, unhappily, the parrot had pecked out the eyes of the poor cherub, all which the lady believed as an indisputable fact. “The Nymph of Tauris,” which was printed in the Annual Register for 1773, was written by Wolcot on the death of this young lady, which occurred in Jamaica.
Sir William Trelawny also died in Jamaica on 11 December, 1772, whereupon Wolcot obtained leave from the new Governor, Dalling, 20 February, 1773, to return to England, accompanying Lady Trelawny, and it was thought not improbable by some that the lady would dry her tears and take Wolcot as her second husband, but death put an end to this scheme, if ever entertained, as she died in the month of August ensuing.
Dr. Wolcot had now entirely dropped his clerical character. He settled at Truro, where he established himself with a view to practising as a doctor. His peculiar treatment, which consisted in giving his fever patients doses of cold water, and his openly proclaimed opinion that a physician did more harm than good by cupping, bleeding, clystering, and by the administration of boluses and draughts, as also that the only good he could effect was by nudging on Dame Nature in the back when slow in recovering the sick, raised a storm against him among his fellow practitioners, and involved him in disputes. Polwhele speaks highly of his medical abilities. “I can say with truth that he had the credit not only of a skilful, but of a benevolent physician. In fevers, he was uncommonly successful. From consumption many were rescued by his hand who had been given up as irrecoverable. As a physician he prescribed medicines; he did more, he examined them, not trusting to the apothecary; and sometimes detected with indignation a cheap medicine substituted for a costly one. He was no favourite with the apothecaries and druggists of the place; but his merit, bearing all before it, showed the impotence of their resentment.”
He quarrelled also with the Corporation of Truro, and when that body attempted to avenge the lampoons he had written upon their vindictive management in planting parish apprentices on him, he removed to Helston in 1779, leaving behind him a characteristic letter: “Gentlemen, your Blunderbuss has missed fire.—Yours, John Wolcot.”
At Truro he had been allowed to drop in occasionally at Polwhele, but the old Mr. Polwhele was always uneasy with him at table, lest he should launch out into gross and unseemly jests and tales.
From Helston he moved to Exeter, practising, but meeting there with small success. At Exeter he made the acquaintance of William Jackson, the organist of the cathedral, and composer, and for him he wrote songs to set to music.