ss seas, to the
shores of Britain; and yet we are still pretending to oppose it with
these foiled weapons.

We are indeed told, by authority, that its appearance in towns has
always been coincident with the arrival of barges from inland, or by
ships from the sea, but if it be not shown at the same time that the
crews of these barges had been infected with the disease, or if, as at
Sunderland, no person on board the ships can be identified as having
introduced it, while we know that the disease actually was there two
months before, we may well ask at what time of the year barges and ships
do not arrive in a commercial seaport, or where an epidemic disease,
during pestiferous seasons could be more likely to break out than where
the most likely subjects are thrown into the most likely places for its
explosion, such as newly arrived sailors in an unwholesome seaport,
where the license of the shore, or the despondency of quarantine
imprisonment must equally dispose them to become its victims.--Besides,
what kind of quarantine can we possibly establish with the smallest
chance of being successful against men who have not got, and never had
the disease. Merchandise has been declared incapable of conveying the
infection,[25] and are we to interdict the hulls and rigging of Vessels
bearing healthy crews, or are we to shut our ports at once against all
commerce with the North of Europe, and would this prove successful if we
did? a reference to a familiar epidemic will I think at once answer this
question.

[Footnote 25: Vide Russian Ukase.]

It is only three months ago that the epidemic Catarrh or Influenza
spread throughout the land, travelling like the Cholera in India, when
it went up the monsoon, without regard to the East wind; and what could
be more likely than the blighting drying process of such a wind, in
either the one or the other case, to prepare the body for falling under
the influence of whatever disease might be afloat in the atmosphere.
In general this passing disease can be distinctly traced, as having
affected our continental neighbours on the other side of the channel
before ourselves: now can it be supposed that any quarantine could have
prevented its first invasion, or arrested its farther progress amongst
us. How ridiculous would have been the attempt, and yet with the
experience of all Europe before us, have we been enacting that very part
with the Cholera Morbus: but further, the same authority which ca