In the month of July the “Eclair” left this station, returned to Sierra Leone, and anchored in the harbour, where she appears to have remained 13 days. This happened to be the rainy season. The crew went on shore, where several of them remained at night unable to reach the ship from being in a state of helpless intoxication.
The consequences were soon apparent. While the ship remained in the harbour, fever again broke out on board with great violence, and continued without intermission during this and the following month. In this sickly state she again left Sierra Leone, proceeded northward in company with another ship, the “Albert,” and anchored in the Gambia on the 10th of August “(one of the most unhealthy months at that place),” where she remained until the 15th. All this time, the fever steadily increasing, she arrived on the 21st of August at Boa Vista. She had now lost, since leaving Sherboro, 13 more of her crew, making in all, from the first outbreak of the disease at Sherboro, 37 attacks and 23 deaths; that is, 1 in 6 of the crew had died.
On anchoring in the harbour of Boa Vista, pratique was at once offered to her commander, Captain Estcourt, but he replied that he could not think of accepting it until he had communicated the state of his vessel to the authorities on shore. After some deliberation the Governor-General consented to the landing of the ship’s company, in the hope that the formidable disease, by which so many had already perished, and so many others were still placed in imminent danger, might be checked. Accordingly the crew, both the healthy and the sick, were sent to a Fort on an islet a mile distant from the town (Porto Sal Rey), and the officers were lodged in the town itself. This took place on the 31st of August.
The hope of benefiting the crew by the change of their quarters from the ship to the land was not realized. On the contrary, the sickness continued to increase with so much virulence that, at the end of the third week after the arrival of the ship at Boa Vista, no fewer than 60 fresh cases were added to the sick list, and some deaths took place nearly every day.
In this state of things a consultation of the medical officers was held on the condition of the crew, the result of which was a recommendation that the ship should immediately proceed to Madeira, and if the fever received no check, that she should go on to England. In conformity with this advice, the whole of the crew, the sick as well as the healthy, were forthwith re-embarked, and the ship sailed from Boa Vista on the following day, namely, the 13th of September.
The sequel to this sad narrative shows that no improvement took place during the passage of the “Eclair” to Madeira, where she was refused pratique. She therefore proceeded next day on her voyage to England, and anchored off the Isle of Wight, at the Motherbank, on the 28th of September, having lost, since sailing from Boa Vista, 12 more of her crew. Thus in the short space of 37 days, that is, from the time when she anchored at Boa Vista on the 21st of August, till her arrival at the Motherbank on the 28th of September, there occurred no less than 90 attacks and 45 deaths, including the death of her excellent and devoted captain.
On her arrival in England the ship was put in quarantine, and remained under the direction of the Privy Council until the 31st of October.
On the day following her arrival, Dr Richardson proposed that the sick should be immediately removed to a wing of Haslar Hospital, to be appropriated exclusively for them; stating, that in his opinion, if the sick were placed in well-ventilated wards, with fresh bedding, and the other means of cleanliness afforded by an hospital, there would be no further risk to the attendants than would occur in wards set apart for cases of typhus fever.
To this advice, Sir William Pym objected, and instead of allowing the removal of the sick, he ordered the vessel, with the whole of her crew, to proceed from the Motherbank to the Foul Bill Quarantine Station at Standgate Creek, which place she did not reach until the afternoon of the 2nd of October, that is, four days after her arrival at the Motherbank, where they remained six days more before their removal into another vessel. Thus were all on board detained close prisoners in a pestilential atmosphere on the shores of their native land; their anticipations that at length they should quit the scene of such terrible sufferings, and of so many horrors, their hopes of life and health, totally destroyed. The consequence was, that within these ten days, five more deaths took place, nor was it until the Lords of the Admiralty declared their conviction that the only means of preserving the lives of the survivors of the crew would be the entire removal of every individual from this ill-fated ship, that they were permitted to quit it. Their removal took place on the 8th of October, after which event two more deaths occurred, one of them being that of the pilot who took the vessel from the Motherbank to Standgate Creek.[[32]]
[32]. A striking contrast to this treatment of the crew of the “Eclair” is exhibited in the case of Her Majesty’s frigate, the “Arethusa,” which recently (Feb. 14, 1852) arrived at Plymouth from Lisbon, having on board cases of small-pox. Instead of putting the ship in quarantine, and confining the healthy in the same poisonous atmosphere with the sick, wiser counsels on this occasion prevailed, and more humane measures were adopted. On the advice of Dr Rae, Inspector of the Royal Naval Hospital, the sick, twelve in number, were immediately removed to that establishment, and of these two died, without any communication of the disease.