ery of government, with the suspected ships
locked up in quarantine, and the persons of the crews actually in their
power, could not have verified to the very letter, the history of every
hour and day of their health, from the moment of their arrival at
Hamburgh till their return into port? This measure was so obviously and
imperiously called for, as constituting the only rational ground on
which the importing contagionists could stand, or their opponents meet
them in argument, that after having waited in vain for the report, I
raised my own feeble voice in the only department to which I had access,
urging an immediate, though then late, investigation. No good cause,
having truth for its basis, could have been so overlooked, and without
unfairness or illiberality, we are irresistibly forced to the
conclusion, that had the enquiry (the only one, by the bye, worth
pursuing, as bearing directly on the question at issue) been pushed to
the proof, it would have shown the utter nullity of quarantine guards
against atmospherical pestilence, the thorough baselessness of the
doctrine of importation.

[Footnote 23: Two of a type most unusual for this country, and the
Winter Season, have occurred in the vale of the Thames, not far from
here, which, as they both recovered, and the disease did not spread in
any way, were very properly allowed to pass without sounding any alarm,
but the gentleman who attended one of the cases, and had been familiar
with the disease in India, at once recognized it again, in its principal
distinguishing features.]

Without entering into the miserable disputes on this subject,
which, amidst a tissue of fable and prejudice, self-interest and
misrepresentation, have so often disgraced the medical profession at
Gibraltar; I shall now proceed to shew, by reference to general causes,
how baseless and mischievous have been the same doctrines and authority
when exercised in that part of the British dominions:--

Within the last thirty years, yellow fever has, at least four times,
invaded the fortress of Gibraltar; during which time also, the
population of its over-crowded town has more than quadrupled, presenting
as fair a field, for the generation within, or reception from without,
of imported pestilence as can well be imagined,--yet plague, the truest
of all contagions, typhus fever, and other infectious diseases, have
never prevailed, as far as I know, amongst them. The plague of the
Levant has not been