Having finally arrived, friendless and moneyless, in New-York, then in the occupation of the British, he endeavored first to obtain a commission in the New-York volunteers, and afterwards employment as mate in the Naval Hospital. In his endeavors, he was kindly assisted by a Jamaica gentleman, a fellow-passenger, whose regard during the voyage he had succeeded in conciliating by his amiable manners and evident abilities; but his efforts were all in vain, and poor Jackson, familiar with poverty from childhood, began now to experience the misery of destitution. In truth, starvation stared him in the face, and a sense of delicacy withheld him from seeking from his Jamaica friend the most trifling pecuniary assistance. In this, his state of desperation, he determined upon passing the British lines, and endeavoring to obtain amongst the insurgents the food he had hitherto sought in vain; resolving, however, under no circumstances to bear arms against his native country. Whilst moodily and slowly walking towards the British outposts to carry into execution this scheme, having in one pocket a shirt, and in another a Greek Testament and a Homer, he was met half-way by a British officer, who fixed his eyes steadily on him in passing. Jackson in his agitation thought he read in the glance a knowledge of his purpose and a disapprobation of it. Struck by the incident, he turned back, and, after a moment's reflection, resolved on offering himself as a volunteer in the first battalion of the 71st regiment (Sutherland Highlanders), then in cantonment near New-York. Arriving at the place, he presented himself to the notice of Lieutenant-Colonel (afterwards Sir Archibald) Campbell, who, having first ascertained that he was a Scotsman, inquired to whom he was known at New-York. Jackson replied, to no one; but that a fellow-passenger from Jamaica would readily testify to his being a gentleman. "I require no testimony to your being a gentleman," returned the kind-hearted colonel. "Your countenance and address satisfy me on that head. I will receive you into the regiment with pleasure; but then I have to inform you, Mr. Jackson, that there are seventeen on the list before you, who are of course entitled to prior promotion." The next day, at the instance of Colonel Campbell, the regimental surgeon, Dr. Stuart, appointed Jackson acting hospital or surgeon's mate—a rank now happily abolished in the British army; for those who filled it, whatever might be their competency or skill, were accounted and treated no better than drudges. Although discharging the duties that now devolve on the assistant-surgeon, they were not, like him, commissioned, but only warrant-officers, and therefore had no title to half-pay.
Dr. Stuart, who appears to have been a man superior to vulgar prejudice, and to have appreciated at once the extent of Jackson's acquirements and the vigor of his intellect, relinquished to him, almost without control, the charge of the regimental hospital. Here it was that this able young officer began to put in practice that amended system of army medical treatment which since his time, but in conformity with his teachings, has been so successfully carried out as to reduce the mortality amongst our soldiery from what it formerly was—about fifteen per cent—to what it is now, about two and a half per cent.
In the army hospitals, at the period Jackson commenced a career that was to eventuate so gloriously, there was no regulated system of diet, no classification of the sick. What are now well known as "medical comforts," were things unheard of; the sick soldier, like the healthy soldier, had his ration of salt-beef or pork, and his allowance of rum. The hospital furnished him with no bedding; he must bring his own blanket. Any place would do for a hospital. That in which Jackson began his labors had originally been a commissary's store; but happily its roof was water-tight—an unusual occurrence—and its site being in close proximity to a wood, our active surgeon's mate managed, by the aid of a common fatigue party, to surround the walls with wicker-work platforms, which served the patients as tolerably comfortable couches. A further and still more important change he effected related to the article of diet. He suggested, and the suggestion was adopted—honor to the courageous humanity which did not shrink from so righteous an innovation!—that instead of his salt ration and spirits, which he could not consume, the sick soldier should be supplied with fresh meat, broth, &c.; and that, as the quantity required for the invalid would be necessarily small, the quarter-master should allow the saving on the commuted ration to be expended in the common market on other comforts, such as sago, &c., suitable for the patient. Thus proper hospital diet was furnished, without entailing any additional expense on the state.[18]
Indefatigable in the discharge of his interesting duties, Mr. Jackson speedily obtained the confidence of his military superiors, who remarked with admiration not only his intelligent zeal in performing his hospital functions, but his calmness, quickness of perception, and generous self-devotion when in the field of battle. On one occasion, although suffering at the time from severe indisposition, he remained, under a heavy fire, succoring the wounded, in spite of the remonstrances of the officers present. On another, having observed the British commander, Colonel (afterwards General) Tarleton, in danger of falling into the hands of the enemy, who had routed the royalist troops, he galloped up to the colonel—whom a musket-ball had just dismounted-pressed him to mount his own horse and escape, whilst he himself, with a white handkerchief displayed, quietly proceeded in the direction of the advancing foe, and surrendered himself at once. The American commander, who did not know what to make of such conduct, asked him who he was? He replied: "I am assistant surgeon in the 71st regiment. Many of the men are wounded, and in your hands. I come, therefore, to offer my services in attending them." He was accordingly sent to the rear as a prisoner; but was well treated, and spent the first night of his captivity in dressing his soldiers' wounds, taking off his shirt, and tearing it up into bandages for the purpose. He afterwards did the same good office for the American sufferers; and when the wounded English could be exchanged, Washington sent him back, not only without exchange, but even without requiring his parole. At a subsequent period during the same unhappy war, when the British under Lord Cornwallis were in full retreat, the sick and wounded were placed in a building—which the colonists, on their approach, began to riddle with shot. Several surgeons, not caring to incur the risk of entering so exposed an edifice, agreed to cast lots who should go in and see to the invalids; but Jackson, with characteristic nerve and simplicity, at once stepped forward: "No, no," said he, "I will go and attend to the men!" He did so, and returned unhurt.
After this we find him a prisoner in the hands of the Americans and French at Yorktown, Virginia. As on the former occasion, he was treated with all imaginable kindness; and, being released on parole, returned to Europe early in 1782, and proceeded by way of Cork, Dublin, and Greenock to Edinburgh, where he abode for a short time. Thence he started for London: and, desirous of testing the best way of sustaining physical strength during long marches, and urged perhaps also by economical considerations, he resolved to make the journey on foot. His West Indian and American experience had taught him that spare diet consisted best with pedestrian efficiency, and it was accordingly his practice, during this long walk, to abstain from animal food until the close of day, nor often then to partake of it. He would walk some fourteen miles before breakfast—a meal of tea and bread; rest then for an hour or an hour and a half; then pace on until bedtime—a salad, a tart, or sometimes tea and bread, forming his usual evening fare. He found that on this diet he arose every morning at dawn with alacrity, and could prosecute without inconvenience his laborious undertaking. By way of experiment he twice or thrice varied his plan—dining on the road off beefsteaks, and having a draught of porter in the course of the afternoon; but the result justified his anticipations. The stimulus of the beer soon passing off, lassitude succeeded the temporary strength it had lent him; and, worse than all, his disposition to early rising sensibly diminished.
His stay in London, which he reached in this primitive fashion, was not long. His kind friend Dr. Stuart, who had exchanged into the Royal Horse-Guards, gave him the shelter of his roof; but so poor was Mr. Jackson, that, although ardently desirous of improving himself in his profession, he was unable to attend any one of the medical schools with which London abounds.
The peace of 1783 having opened the continent to the curiosity of the British traveller, Jackson curtly announced to his friends, that "he was going to take a walk." His poverty allowed him no other mode of locomotion; so off he set on the grand tour, carrying with him a map of France, a bundle of clothes, and a scanty supply of money. Crossing the Channel, he reached Calais, a place which Horace Walpole, writing from Rome, declared had astonished him more than any thing he had elsewhere seen, but in which our adventurer found nothing more astonishing than a superb Swiss regiment. He proceeded to Paris, and thence through Switzerland, by Geneva and Berne, into Germany, at a town of which—Günz in Suabia—he met with a comical enough adventure.
On entering the town he was challenged by a soldier, who, having learned he had no passport, carried him before a magistrate, by whom he was forthwith condemned as a vagabond, and remitted to the custody of a recruiting sergeant. This worthy, in turn, introduced him to the commanding officer, who politely gave our traveller the choice of serving his Imperial and Apostolic Majesty, the Emperor of Germany, either in his cavalry or his infantry forces. But Jackson, strangely insensible to the honor, flatly refused to serve his Majesty in these or any other ways, and desired to be at once set free, and suffered to continue his journey. The officer, doubtless, amazed at such presumption, desired the sergeant to convey him to the barracks, where he was placed in a large room, in which were congregated some two hundred or so involuntary recruits like himself—harmless travellers, who, being destitute of passports, the emperor forcibly enlisted into his service. Jackson found his co-mates in misfortune very dirty, very ragged, but perfectly civil and good-tempered. Having a little recovered his serenity—for it is easy to see, though our hero is described as a man of placid demeanor and somewhat Quakerly appearance, he could be not a little fiery at times—he sat down and wrote to the commanding officer, entreating leave to sleep at an inn, and proffering the deposit of all his money as a pledge for his reappearance next morning. The reply was an order that he should surrender his writing materials. At seven o'clock, the appointed sleeping hour, the sergeant returned and gave the signal for bed by rapping with his cane on the floor, which was speedily covered by a number of dirty bags of mouldy straw—the regulation mattresses, it would seem, for involuntary recruits. Jackson—peppery again—refused to lie down, but was at last compelled to do so, and between two of the dirtiest fellows of the lot, each of whom had a leg chained to an arm. The next morning, at his own request, he was brought before the commandant of the town, who had only arrived late the preceding evening, and whom he found seated in his bedroom, "with all his officers standing round him receiving orders," says Jackson, "with more humility than orderly-sergeants." The commandant repeated the offer of "cavalry or infantry;" adding that a war was about to commence with the Turks, and that good-behavior would insure promotion. However, finding Jackson obstinately persistent in his refusal, he quietly observed, in conclusion, that the emperor, as a matter of rule and of right, "impressed" into his army all such as entered his dominions without certificates of character. "The order was so tyrannical," declares our détenu, "that I could not contain myself. 'Put me in chains, if you please,' I said, 'but I tell you, all Germany shall not make me carry a musket for the emperor.'" This impetuous burst of indignation seems to have alarmed the pglegmatic commandant, who accordingly let our adventurer go, counselling him, however, to write to the English ambassador at Vienna for a passport, lest he should get into further trouble.
Jackson passed through the Tyrol into Italy, every where indulging his love of scenery and still greater love of adventure; studying with all the acuteness of his countrymen the varied characters of the people he met with, and in his correspondence with home friends, sketching them in language striking for its force, its propriety, and originality. Some of his remarks on men and manners are conceived in a truly Goldsmithian vein, whilst all testify at once to the goodness of his heart and the quickness of his perceptions. At Venice he says that he felt it to be "such a feast of enjoyment as seldom falls to the lot of man, and never to the lot of any but a poor man, who has nothing conspicuous about him to attract the notice of the crowd," to possess such facilities as he did for learning what the people of foreign countries really were.
At Albenga, in Piedmont, Jackson arrived one night, tired, hungry, and drenched with rain. Intending to put up at the "Albergo di San Dominico," which he had been informed was the best inn, he went by accident to the convent of the same name, and entering, called loudly to be shown to a private room. "Instead of telling me I was wrong," he says, "the young brethren looked waggish, and began to laugh: when a man is cold and hungry, he can ill brook being the sport of others;" so accordingly—peppery again—he shook his stick angrily at the young monks. And at last one of the most courteous and demure of the number, coming forward, said that although theirs was not exactly a public house, still the stranger was heartily welcome to walk in, rest, and refresh himself. Discovering his mistake, Jackson of course lost no time in making his bow, his apologies, and acknowledgments.