Complaints were made that the result of the inquiry was prejudged. In proof of this it was found that the President of the Board, a few days before it held its first meeting, addressed to the military secretary of the garrison an official letter in which, among other observations directly tending to a prejudgment of the case, he affirms, that “the fever in question has often been traced to importation, and against this source only must we look for its prevention.”
It appears further that before the meeting of the Board an official intimation of the views and wishes of the local authorities was promulgated in the Government Gazette, into which nothing is admitted but by authority, in the following words:—
“The scourge from which we have been by Divine Providence just delivered must be an exotic of some kind. It is in its origin independent of everything inherent in the soil which we inhabit, incapable of existing among us during the winter months, and totally distinct from and unconnected with the Remitting and Intermitting Fever, which may be said to be unknown in this garrison.”
“Two causes,” observes Mr Howell, “concurred to operate injuriously upon the proceedings of the Board: First, the conviction universally prevalent among the civil population of Gibraltar, that the prosperity of that community would be undermined if it should be proved that the epidemic had been generated on the spot, because of the prohibitions and restrictions which it was anticipated would in that case be inflicted upon its commercial intercourse with other places. Hence the notion that not only the last epidemic, but that all its predecessors had been imported from some foreign country was not only anxiously supported by the unanimous voice of the civil community, but it was with equal unanimity believed that a different doctrine would be fatal to the commercial prosperity of the place. From this feeling of self-interest it is to be admitted that the military were exempt, a distinction between the two classes which ought to be taken into account in estimating the value of the evidence taken by the Board, and more especially the evidence of the medical practitioners.
“The second cause operating injuriously upon this inquiry was the publication, in the official government newspaper (into which nothing is admitted except by official authority), on January 12, 1829, of an article authoritatively announcing that the late epidemic had been imported into Gibraltar, and denouncing as void of common sense any person who should hold a different opinion. This official notification of the feelings of the local Government (preceding as it did by only 12 days the appointment of the Board of Inquiry) could hardly fail to encourage evidence on one side, and discourage evidence on the other.”
Complaints were also made that there was a partial selection of witnesses.
“It always appeared most extraordinary and ‘unjustifiable,’” says Dr Gillkrest, “that on this kind of inquiry, which was intended by the Secretary of State to be so beneficial to the interests of humanity, the Superintendent of Quarantine, as president, should have assumed the right in several instances of selecting the witnesses, which obviously prejudiced the question, and by which much of the truth was intercepted.
“Several medical officers of the garrison who had much experience respecting the progress of the epidemic, were either not examined at all, or only in a very imperfect manner. I was among the latter, being surgeon to the 43rd Regiment, and present during the whole epidemic. After a very limited examination, I officially informed the President, by letter, that I had much to state; but, like others, I was not called afterwards.
“From what I felt due to the service of which I had been a member for so many years, as well as the cause of truth, I was induced to protest against such proceedings, which protest will, I presume, be found with the documents connected with the inquiry forwarded from Gibraltar to the Colonial Office in London.”
Complaints were further made of the mode of collecting the evidence adopted on this occasion, which was such as to excite the suspicion of some of the members of the Commission, and to lead eventually to their condemnation of it, and their repudiation of the Report which was founded upon it.[[38]]