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Updated: June 23, 2025
"You will not care overmuch for my secular history, but will say, 'What did you learn on the passage? Well, the passage was truly a fearful trial; dirt prevailed in everything; the bilge-water literally, when pumped out from decayed sugar, tore up the very inmost parts of the stomach, and showed me that, if that was wrong, life was unendurable.
I should have observed that I had reason to congratulate myself the ship was new and well caulked, and that not a leak existed throughout her length, for had any bilge-water been in her the stench would have been insufferable, and would soon either have deprived me of life or produced a serious sickness.
And it was a dreary moment for Jimson when he pulled this after him and found himself alone on this unwholesome fortress. He could hear the rats scuttle and flop in the abhorred interior; the key cried among the wards like a thing in pain; the sitting-room was deep in dust, and smelt strong of bilge-water.
Nothing would suit him after this but that we should have Supper at the King of Prussia's Head, in the Savoy, and, as I had given up my Lodgings as not Grand enough for me on the eve of my wedding, and the Vessel of which he was Commander was lying in the Pool, that we should have Beds at his charges at the same Tavern; and, indeed, your Seafaring Men, although rough enough, and smelling woundily of tar and bilge-water, are the most Hospitable Creatures breathing; and that makes Me so free with my Money when there is a treat afoot; albeit I can, without Vanity, declare myself Amphibious, for I have seen as much service by Sea as by Land, and have always approved myself a Gentleman of Courage, Honour, and Discretion, on both Elements.
In the smell of bilge-water, tar, and the foetid atmosphere generally his clouded brain awoke to the fact that he was on board ship, but resolutely declined to inform him how he got there.
The scurvy is a disease not so common now, but it used to act as if all the bad salt pork you'd eaten were coming out through the skin, till you looked like a Stilton cheese, and what you wanted was to be fed on vegetables, and put ashore so as to get the bilge-water dried out.
While Roger and the cook sat on the man from Boston and forced him down into the evil-smelling bilge-water, the second mate and I felt around under the skin of the hold and drew out bag after bag, until the candle-light showed eighteen lying side by side. "There ought to be two more," said Roger. "I can't find another one, sir," the second mate replied. I now hit upon an idea.
Now, if so be as how you have a mind to give him a salt eel for his supper, here am I, without hope of fee or reward, ready to stand by you as long as my timbers will stick together: and if I expect any recompense, may I be bound to eat oakum and drink bilge-water for life."
That Tourville would not be satisfied with anything short of taking my life, I was convinced; and very soon I began to feel that I did not care how soon he sated his vengeance; for confined below in the heat and darkness of the stifling hold, with no resting-place but the hard shingle for my aching body, breathing an atmosphere poisonous with the odour of bilge-water, with only three flinty ship-biscuits, alive with weevils, and a half-pint of putrid water per day upon which to sustain life, and beset by ferocious rats who disputed with me the possession of my scanty fare, I soon became so miserably ill that death quickly lost all its terrors, and I felt that I could welcome it as a release from my sufferings.
The ship in which Wolfe was to sail had been lying idle for years; and her pestilential bilge-water soon began to make the sailors and soldiers sicken and die. Most fortunately, Wolfe was among the first to take ill; and so he was sent home in time to save him from the fevers of Spanish America. Wolfe was happy to see his mother again, to have his pony to ride and his dogs to play with.
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