At day-break on the 15th, Flushing had all the appearance of a vast charnel-house, for whichever way a person turned his eyes, there was nothing to be seen but houses
Tottering in frightful ruins, as the flames
Had left them, black and bare;
And half-burnt bodies, which allured from far
The wolf and raven,—and to impious food
Tempted the houseless dog.
Having all along looked forward to the fall of Flushing as a signal for the simultaneous advance of both army and navy, to prosecute, to a successful close, our ulterior operations against the enemy, language cannot express in terms sufficiently strong, the severe disappointment which all of us experienced, when, instead of being ordered to act a part worthy of the land of our birth, the whole army was kept in cantonments, and in the full enjoyment of an inglorious ease, till the troops became so sickly, that it seemed to be a matter of doubt how far prudence would lend the sanction of her name to any further military operations against Antwerp. To settle this point, however, a council of war was held, but not till TEN DAYS AFTER the surrender of Flushing. The deliberations of the council were, as a matter of course, kept a profound secret. But report was busy on the occasion, and if it spoke truth, a naval officer of rank offered, with a given number of frigates, &c., to lead the way to Antwerp, and there take, burn, or otherwise destroy the whole of the enemy's fleet and stores, provided he was supported by Sir John Hope, with a mixed force of 22,000 men. The offer, though not accepted, must have shewn the members of the council, that there was one of their number, who did not occupy that place at their board which his great military talents entitled him to fill. For on the same day it was also reported, that on the breaking up of the meeting of the general officers, more than one of them expressed an intention of returning to England, that they might no longer be an obstacle in the way of his appointment to the supreme command of the army in Holland. If none of the lieutenant-generals, senior to Sir John Hope, expressed themselves in the manner above stated, then report must have been amusing its auditors with a tale of fiction; but until the assertion is shewn to be groundless, by the testimony of one or more of the lieutenant-generals then present, (two of whom, viz. the Duke of Gordon, and Earl of Rosslyn, are still alive,) I shall consider myself entitled to hold the same opinion I have hitherto done in regard to this matter.
About the 20th of August, the troops were first attacked with fever and ague. Towards the latter end of the month it had appeared in the ranks of every battalion, but in some with more virulency than in others. A great part of the men being quartered in barns, it frequently occurred that all the inmates, (six or eight,) of some of those places, were seized with the disease in the same night. This, however, we were not much surprised at; for the natural dampness of the barn-floors, and the humidity of a Dutch atmosphere, were of themselves more than sufficient to engender disease, even had the barns been placed on situations of much greater altitude. As an antidote to the pestilential vapours incident to the climate, a wholesale system of bathing was recommended by our medical friends. When it was intended to indulge the soldiers with a little of this cooling amusement, they were generally marched down to the right bank of the Western Scheldt about mid-day. At a given sound of the bugle, the lads of our battalion undressed, but not a man durst move into the water, till the shrill notes of a second bugle intimated to the interesting group that they had permission to do so, dressed in Adam's first covering. The scene which followed can only be pourtrayed by the pencil of a Cruickshank,—language would fail in the attempt. Some were highly amused with the exhibition; but I must confess that I looked upon the whole proceedings with loathing and disgust. I most readily concede, that the feelings of a considerable portion of the private soldiers are not of a very refined description,—but as men of various characters are to be found in every mixed society,—who will assert that there were not many individuals in the battalion, whose feelings were deeply wounded on these occasions, by making them figure in an exhibition, no less novel than indecent. It is bad policy to place men in situations, where, if any change in their conduct is produced, that change must be for the worse.
But Sir William Erskine, who was intimately acquainted with the nature of the malady, strongly recommended to our notice the following recipe,—one glass of brandy before dressing, one at breakfast, one after dinner, and another in the evening. This antidote, being much more congenial to the habits and tastes of a great majority of his brigade, than an ablution in the Scheldt, raised the fame of Sir William as a son of Æsculapius, far above others of greater pretensions.
But regardless of all our antidotes, death appeared in our ranks about the latter end of August. His power continuing to increase, it was deemed advisable to remove all our sick to England, on the 1st of September. On the 2nd, our division, the reserve, received notice to prepare for embarkation; and on the following morning we marched to the left bank of the Eastern Scheldt—went on board of transports ready to receive us, and afterwards dropped down to the anchorage of the Vere-Gat. Here, by some of those unaccountable occurrences which but too often follow the failure of a military enterprise, we were detained nearly a week, inhaling infection at every breath, when we might have been enjoying the healthful breezes of our native land. The consequences were such as any man of common understanding would have anticipated. Fever and ague, in its worst form, increased so rapidly, that before we reached our own coast, more than a-half of the men were under medical treatment, and the whole as uncomfortable as our most inveterate enemy could wish.
On the morning subsequent to our re-embarkation, between twenty and thirty of the men on board of the transport in which I took my passage, were attacked with the pestilence. To prevent it spreading, the worst cases were removed from the hold, into boats placed under an awning on deck. In one of these temporary hospitals, ten or a dozen fine fellows were confined on the evening of the 5th September, when the first victim on board ship, a tall, handsome grenadier, took leave of this world. His companions taking it for granted that their dissolution was also approaching, became so agitated, that it was with the utmost difficulty they could be prevailed upon to remain in their berths. Being on deck when the grenadier died, and perceiving the state into which his melancholy exit had thrown them, I endeavoured, but unsuccessfully, to soothe their excited feelings, and banish the dreadful notions which seemed to haunt their minds; but the prospect of immediate dissolution, and its attendant horrors, stared them so fully in the face, that no language I could use seemed to have the smallest effect. Their situation, at length, was so truly deplorable, that one of the party, a tall, robust non-commissioned officer, started to his feet with the agility of the hare, leaped from the boat, and then with the countenance of a maniac, ran along the deck, crying in all the bitterness of despair, that he was a dying man, and continued in this state of temporary delirium, till a fresh attack of ague compelled him to resume his place in the boat.
In the same group of patients, there was a grenadier, a man of a most athletic form, but of weak intellect. On perceiving the serjeant leap from the boat, honest Willie Mill attempted to follow his example, but was prevented by the sentry on duty. Early next morning I went on deck, expecting to find Willie in the last stage of the disease, but to my utter surprise I found him soliciting, not the grim king of terrors for a short respite, but the pay-sergeant of his company for a morning repast. Willie's appetite being always keen, he pressed his suit with so much ardour, that the sergeant was frequently on the point of yielding. A sense of duty, however, at length prevailed, and Willie's request was refused. Foiled in his attempt to obtain a substantial breakfast of beef and bread, Willie turned round, and with a look that would have sunk deep into the heart of a savage, very gravely said,—"Weel, weel, sergeant M'Combie, if ye think thae things are o'er strong for my weak stamach, just gang to the cook, and tell him to mak me some stir-about, and to mak it gay'n thick." I need scarcely add, that Willie's second request excited considerable merriment on deck, in which some of his boat-companions, ill though they were, heartily joined. Willie's last appeal was too powerful to be resisted; his appetite was gratified; he recovered, and I believe still lives to enjoy the bounty of his sovereign, which enables him to indulge in a daily allowance of his favourite stir-about.
On the 8th September, the transports containing our regiment, quitted their anchorage on the Dutch coast, and on the 10th cast anchor in the Downs. On the following morning we sailed for Harwich, where, by reason of foul winds, we did not arrive till the afternoon of the 13th. Early on the 14th our worst cases were landed and consigned to the care of the medical staff at Harwich, and a few of those who could with safety be removed farther by water, were transported in boats to Ipswich. In the afternoon the rest of the battalion, including all the remaining sick, landed at Land-Guard Fort, and proceeded to Woodbridge barracks—the former on foot, the latter on waggons. Never did I witness a spectacle more heart-rending than the removal of the sick from the transports to the shore, and thence to Woodbridge. The emaciated figures, and long thin pale visages of the poor sufferers as they lay stretched in the boats and on the waggons,—the piercing shrieks and agonizing groans which the jolting of the latter drew from their death-like lips, forced tears from my eyes as I moved along with the melancholy throng. This scene however, distressing as it was, was soon to be eclipsed by others of a still more mournful description. For several weeks after our arrival at Woodbridge, our sick-list daily increased, till upwards of four hundred of our men were immured within the cheerless walls of an hospital. Of these, two, three, and even four, were frequently removed in one day to the place of interment, and there consigned to the silent tomb, by those few whom a merciful Providence was pleased to bless with health and strength. At first the dead were buried with military honours; but this mark of respect was latterly withheld, on a representation being made to the commanding-officer by the medical attendants, that the long-roll of the muffled drum operated so powerfully on the minds of the sick, as to renew the alarming symptoms which had previously yielded to the power of medicine. As each mournful procession crossed the barrack-square, the lamentations of friends, or the wailings of a widow, and her orphan children, struck upon every ear, and penetrated every heart. Never, no never, shall these distressing scenes, the fruits of rashness and mismanagement, be banished from my remembrance.
During the first two months of our residence in Woodbridge, the duties of the regimental medical staff were unremitting and severe—particularly those of assistant surgeon Dunn, whose humanity would never permit him to absent himself from the bed of the poor sufferers, so long as his medical advice could be of service. For this praise-worthy attention to those under his charge, the blessings of the soldiers saluted him at every step, and no doubt encouraged him to persevere in the same laudable conduct throughout. I have been induced to notice these facts, in order to shew my young medical friends that it is only by a humane, diligent, and faithful performance of their duties, that they can expect to obtain the grateful and sincere respect of those whose comforts and happiness, on similar occasions, are generally increased or lessened, in exact proportion to the zeal with which the surgeon and his assistants discharge the duties of their stations.