When strict precautions like these had been taken in the course of the voyage, and the masters of the ships had been careful to time their entrance into Virginian waters with the late autumn, the sickness among the immigrants, both before and after they reached land, was less extensive.[1] How dangerous it was to be inattentive to the month of the arrival was shown in the number of sea-captains who, in 1635, were stricken down by the evil influence of the climate. Fifteen in a company of thirty-six died. They had never previously visited the Colony, and had come before the frosts had destroyed the germs of ague. This year was probably more than usually unhealthy.[2] Devries informs us that at this time, persons who had not been seasoned “died like cats and dogs in June, July, and August.” This sickness was thought to be due to the variableness of the climate. “One hour,” it was said, “the air was so hot that it seemed to be unendurable, and the next, a wind from the northwest arose with so much freshness that an overcoat was necessary to comfort.”[3] There was still reason, however, to attribute much of the illness among those who were unseasoned to infections beginning in the ships of the merchants. In 1636, Governor West pointed out with great warmth the injustice of charging upon the climate instances of mortality which were easily to be traced to the extreme noisomeness in the condition of many of the vessels on their arrival in
- ↑ Letter of Governor and Council to Company, 1621, Neill’s Virginia Company of London, p. 276.
- ↑ Devries’ Voyages from Holland to America, p. 112. Greater mortality among ship captains was probably never known, not even on the West Coast of Africa.
- ↑ Devries’ Voyages from Holland to America, pp. 54, 109.
of jail fever, described as “calenture,” is referred to in the account of Challons’ voyage, Brown’s Genesis of the United States. See p. 137. See also Virginia Gazette, July 15, 1737.
