| Title: | Letter to Irish Merchants Concerning Provisioning of Vessels. |
|---|---|
| ID | 3906 |
| Collection | Irish Emigration Database |
| File | 1781-90/116 |
| Year | 1784 |
| Sender | unknown |
| Sender Gender | unknown |
| Sender Occupation | unknown |
| Sender Religion | unknown |
| Origin | unknown |
| Destination | unknown |
| Recipient | unknown |
| Recipient Gender | unknown |
| Relationship | re emigration |
| Source | The Belfast Mercury 1st June 1784. |
| Archive | The Linenhall Library, Belfast. |
| Doc. No. | 9407052 |
| Date | 01/06/1784 |
| Partial Date | |
| Doc. Type | LET |
| Log | Document added by LT, 04:07:1994. |
| Word Count | 416 |
| Genre | |
| Note | |
| Transcript | To the Merchants of Ireland who fit out Vessels for carrying Passengers to America. LETTER IV These vessels which are employed in the passenger trade, ought surely not only to be stout and well prepared in the respects in my former letters mentioned, but also to be well ventilated; and cleanliness on board, likewise to conducive for preserving and restoring health, should be a principal object of attention. The owner of the least vessel capable, with the prospect of safety, of carrying passengers to America, ought in so laudable an undertaking in my opinion, to be encouraged. I leave it therefore to others to determine what sort and size of vessels are best adapted to the passenger trade, but must say, that these [those?] with effectual means of admitting a free circulation of the great vivifying principle of the air, have in this respect a vast superiority over those which are not provided with such salutary conveniences. The air with which we are surrounded, and which is our vital spring, must from its pressure, elasticity, heat, cold, moisture and above all from the degree of purity, be a very effectual means either of removing or inducing disease. It is allowed by all that the foul air arisng from filthy or diseased bodies in barracks, hospitals or transports that are crouded [crowded?] (especially where there is an accumulation of corrupted air and in hot weather) is the pestilential source of bad fevers and other diseases: And as the small pox generally borrow the type of their attendant fever from the prevailing epidemic, so this disease is commonly mortal in these vessels where a bad fever prevails. It is not therefore without reason that the Messrs. Browns of Belfast refuse to take any passengers who have not had the small pox. The [use?] of meats long salted (which are really tainted and fit for use) corrupted grain, and foul air, are generally accompanied with a gloomy train of the most mortal diseases, among which (especially where there is a want of vegetables we may reckon scurvy.) If I were to attempt to enumerate the destructive effects upon the human species, especially at sea, of corrupted provisions, foul air, and uncleanliness, I might fill volumes. Doctor Huxon describes a most pestilential fever to have raged at Plymouth, occasioned not only by the number of French prisoners, but also by the hospitals and other places being crouded [crowded?] with men taken out of our own ships, actually ill of distemper. |
