ht, for although I was always a
hearty, strong woman--plain-spoken people might say stout--I think my
heart is soft enough.

How slowly and gradually I succeeded in life, need not be told at
length. My fortunes underwent the variations which befall all.
Sometimes I was rich one day, and poor the next. I never thought too
exclusively of money, believing rather that we were born to be happy,
and that the surest way to be wretched is to prize it overmuch. Had I
done so, I should have mourned over many a promising speculation
proving a failure, over many a pan of preserves or guava jelly burnt
in the making; and perhaps lost my mind when the great fire of 1843,
which devastated Kingston, burnt down my poor home. As it was, I very
nearly lost my life, for I would not leave my house until every chance
of saving it had gone, and it was wrapped in flames. But, of course, I
set to work again in a humbler way, and rebuilt my house by degrees,
and restocked it, succeeding better than before; for I had gained a
reputation as a skilful nurse and doctress, and my house was always
full of invalid officers and their wives from Newcastle, or the
adjacent Up-Park Camp. Sometimes I had a naval or military surgeon
under my roof, from whom I never failed to glean instruction, given,
when they learned my love for their profession, with a readiness and
kindness I am never likely to forget. Many of these kind friends are
alive now. I met with some when my adventures had carried me to the
battle-fields of the Crimea; and to those whose eyes may rest upon
these pages I again offer my acknowledgments for their past kindness,
which helped me to be useful to my kind in many lands.

And here I may take the opportunity of explaining that it was from a
confidence in my own powers, and not at all from necessity, that I
remained an unprotected female. Indeed, I do not mind confessing to my
reader, in a friendly confidential way, that one of the hardest
struggles of my life in Kingston was to resist the pressing candidates
for the late Mr. Seacole's shoes.

Officers of high rank sometimes took up their abode in my house.
Others of inferior rank were familiar with me, long before their
bravery, and, alas! too often death, in the Crimea, made them world
famous. There were few officers of the 97th to whom Mother Seacole was
not well known, before she joined them in front of Sebastopol; and
among the best known was good-hearted, loveable, noble H---- V---