Fever

The records do not allow a precise statement of the numbers who died during the time the 32nd were in Nassau.  Of the 380 who arrived, about 240 had died by the time the regiment came to leave.  Another 99 men of the 47th had also died, but it is not clear that they died simply from catching disease from the 32nd.  After all, during their previous posting to Nassau, the 47th had also been reduced by illness, and many of the regiment were newcomers to the island when they replaced the 32nd.

It is also unclear how many townsfolk died in the period following the arrival of the 32nd.  In his letter of 5 June 1797, Hunt says : "From the extraordinary drought that has so long prevailed amongst these Islands, there was reason to apprehend that the Town of Nassau would have been visited by that dreadful distemper, the Yellow Fever, which has indeed within these three weeks made its appearance and carried off about twenty or thirty persons."^[xviii]  Writing on 8 September 1797, Hunt says 40 young men among the islanders had died of the disease, though it is not clear if this includes the 20-30 mentioned in his earlier letter.  He adds that the effects of the disease in the town had ceased.^[xix]

It is noticeable that Hunt, like the Bahama Gazette, attributed the fever's appearance in the town to the recent drought.  The 32nd had been in Nassau for 3 months, while the fever had only appeared among the townsfolk in the last 3 weeks.  Hunt is also unsure how many death's were attributable to yellow fever rather than some other disease.  It is also noticeable that Hunt says the disease affected the young men, a point echoed by Forbes' executors who, while they were clear that the 32nd had infected the island, also made the point that the effect had "proved fatal only to new settlers".  This suggests that established settlers had acquired immunity through previous infection from what was perhaps a long-established illness.^[xx]

Others later drew attention to local public health issues.  Correspondence in the Bahama Gazette in May 1799 drew attention to the state of the marshes at each end of the town.  An "Inhabitant", writing to Christ Church Vestry on 10 May, referred to "the ineffectual and ill-planned attempt to fill them up, or drain them".^[xxi]  He said he had been assured that they had been "the occasion of the greater part of the deaths that have occurred during the last five summers."  He supported his assertion with quotations from recent books on the subject, which attributed the cause to "vegetable putrefaction", "a peculiar state of the air, and ... marsh exhalations".  The writer went on to refer to the sickness and death in 1794 among inhabitants living near the eastern marsh, which "few persons could pass without disgust, and none without danger."  He noted that people living upwind of the marsh escaped infection until the wind changed direction.  He concluded by saying : "My views in stating these facts are merely to shew on what foundation I rest my belief that the Fever which has paid us such fatal visits, was generated in this place, and from the causes stated."^[xxii]

Nowadays we would be more inclined to blame the mosquito, which doubtless flourished in the marshes.  That mosquitoes were a considerable nuisance in Nassau is attested to by Ross-Lewin :

            A small house of two rooms, situated between the fort and the town, was the

            quarters selected for another sick officer and me;  we had an old woman to attend

            us, and, but for her, the musquitoes would have rendered it almost uninhabitable;

            her method of keeping away those troublesome insects consisted in boiling bitter

            herbs at night, the smoke from which they could not bear.^[xxiii] 

Fort Charlotte, where the 32nd were living from September 1797 at the latest, had a marsh below it and to the west.  The regiment was, of course, very sick when it arrived, and the death rate would have been exacerbated by a combination of quarantine in close confinement aboard ship and by poor hygiene.<Friday, 11 November, 2005 16:38ey would have been more vulnerable to indigenous disease than other newcomers, and they probably also died of what they contracted in Nassau.

Given that yellow fever is transmitted by mosquito, it is unlikely that the quarantine arrangements would have prevented the spread of infection, even if they had been properly applied.  But it is debatable whether the illness the regiment brought with them was in fact yellow fever.  Generally those who contract it either die in a week or recover and become immune.  The recurrent and lingering nature of their illness points more to malaria, or possibly typhoid or dysentery.  Yellow fever is apparently difficult to diagnose without modern diagnostic aids.^[xxiv]

As observed earlier, one of the first things to concern Forbes when the 32nd arrived was the expense that would be incurred in providing medical care for the regiment.  The principal costs were incurred in the first year, and these are referred to in accounts sent by Hunt to Portland in January 1798.  Apart from items such as food, new bedding and renovating hospitals, there is also an entry of over £266 (£155 sterling) for the "Hire of Negroes employed in attending the sick of the 32nd Regiment."  The accounts include a letter from Major Mansergh, then commanding the 32nd, saying they could now be discharged, a clear indication that the worst of the sickness was seen to be over by then.^[xxv]  However, as the 32nd were preparing to leave in 1799, Alex Begbie the Commissary was advertising for "Four Negro women as Nurses and Washers at the Hospital at Fort Charlotte."^[xxvi]

Life in Nassau

By the end of 1797 the 32nd had lost some 140 men since arrival, including their first commanding officer, Major Robert Hedley.  Those left alive probably felt that their days were numbered.  But if at that stage they longed to get home, it was not a feeling that lasted.  By the time the 32nd at last pulled out, a large number of men opted to stay.  Why was that?

The records contain no great indication of how the 32nd spent their time.  For the majority, of course, there was no more than sickness and death.  By 1 November 1797, the first field report made in Nassau put the regiment's numbers at 246, of whom 137 were sick.  Subsequently  numbers fell more slowly - to 196 in May 1798 (56 sick);  and to 160 in May 1799 (47 sick).^[xxvii]

For the fit, their time in the Bahamas was spent in virtually peacetime conditions.  There would have been daily parades and occasional drills, and records from 1799 show that guards were mounted at Nassau's forts and at other installations.  There were also ceremonial occasions - the Queen's birthday on 18 January, and the King's on 4 June (though in 1797 it was overshadowed by the funeral of Acting Governor Forbes); the arrival of Governor Dowdeswell in March 1798;  and impromptu celebrations of military successes such as Nelson's victory at the Nile.^[xxviii]

In leisure time, Nassau would doubtless have offered the usual facilities of a busy harbour town.  Rum was always a problem for the army.  Although there are no records of drunkenness while the 32nd were in Nassau, the memoirs of the surgeon of another regiment tell of soldiers in St Domingue drinking large quantities of young rum in the belief that it protected against the fever, drunkenness being an especial problem in the week following pay day.  The same surgeon also commented that "Of all European troops, our own seem to be the most helpless and listless in their quarters.  So much is done for them, that, without enjoyment or occupation, they yawn away their time, against which they appear to have no resource but the canteen or the gin-shop."^[xxix]

A few of the men got married in Nassau, but the records are not clear whether they married local women or those who had travelled with the regiment.  Capt. John Wood, however, did marry a local girl, Mary Bowles, daughter of the late Leonard Bowles.^[xxx]

For the officer there were more genteel pursuits than the harbour tavern.  Such as the theatre where Mr and Mrs Henderson and others performed plays, one part being invariably played by "a gentleman for his Amusement".  For a private soldier the cheapest seats at 6 shillings (just over 3 shillings sterling) would have cost nearly a week's wages.  During the day officers could visit Mr Henderson's British & American Coffee House, occasionally partaking of turtle soup, and maybe enjoying one of Mr Perrault's "excellent Segars".  On winter evenings they might attend one of Mrs Smith's Dancing Assemblies, having honed their dancing skills at Mr Jackson's Nassau Academy.  And horse lovers might attend the race track at Hobby Horse Hall, a little to the west of Fort Charlotte.^[xxxi]

There was the obvious lure of privateering, with its promise of action and prize money, and  evidence exists of desertion among the troops.  Only one desertion is actually recorded in the muster rolls of the 32nd, in December 1798.  But Lt Col Irving of the 47th Regiment, then in Nassau and in command, was driven to placing a notice in the Bahama Gazette on 12 March 1799 warning masters of vessels to stop inducing men to desert.^[xxxii]

But perhaps above all there was also the attraction of Nassau itself, where life was easy compared to Britain.  Going home meant returning to a war zone or, in the event of peace, a life of unemployment and poverty in a colder climate.  So maybe it is not really surprising that the majority of the surviving members of the 32nd opted to stay.

Leaving Nassau

In a sense, the 32nd had been leaving virtually from the moment they arrived.  It was Hunt's letter of 8 September 1797 that secured the 32nd's return to Britain, a fact recognised in a letter of thanks from Major Mansergh which he published in the Bahama Gazette on 23 March 1798.  It may be significant that while Mansergh chose to thank Hunt, the militia chose instead to publish a letter of welcome to Governor Dowdeswell in the same issue of the Gazette.  When Mansergh wrote to Dowdeswell on 27 May 1798 advising him that the regiment had donated a week's wages to the war effort, Dowdeswell's reply was civil but terse, perhaps indicating a frostiness between the two.  It may also be significant that in March 1799 Mansergh published the Duke of York's acknowledgement of the donation in July 1798 - was this to satisfy Dowdeswell or the locals that the donation had in fact been made?^[xxxiii]

The plan to replace the 32nd with half the 47th Regiment, once they had been augmented by the 6th Regiment of the Irish Brigade, went wrong from the start.  Only a fortnight after telling Hunt of the plan, Portland was writing again to say that before the orders reached the Irish Brigade they had set sail for Halifax, Nova Scotia, their original destination.  He said the plan remained unchanged, but there would be some delay.  Chalmers assured the colony that, as he judged from the "peremptoriness of the orders", the British government was committed to replacing the 32nd.^[xxxiv]

The months passed, Governor Dowdeswell arrived, and during 1798 he sent a couple of letters to Portland referring to the dwindling numbers of the 32nd.  At last, in November that year, he was able to report that a detachment of a little over 100 men of the 47th had arrived under the command of Lt Col Irving.  He expected this number to increase to 300, but as this fell short of the desired 500 he proposed to offer the men of the 32nd a bounty to transfer to the 47th.  He subsequently deferred this proposal until he got confirmation from London, and this was sent by Portland in April 1799.^[xxxv]

By this time, everyone seems to have forgotten Hunt's advice in his letter of 8 September 1797 that the 32nd should be taken off the island and the barracks cleansed before replacements were brought ashore.^[xxxvi]  Almost as soon as they arrived, the 47th lost men to disease.  Another company of the 47th arrived in May 1799, and on the 25th of that month their numbers were put at 197, including 27 sick.^[xxxvii]

While Dowdeswell waited for the remainder of the 47th to arrive he spent two months convalescing on Harbour Island.  So it was not until 9 December 1799 that he was able to report to Portland that 94 men of the 32nd had transferred to the 47th.  This, he said, barely made up for the 99 men of the 47th who had been lost since their arrival.  He went on : "The Officers and Non-commissioned Officers of the 32nd Regt in part embarked in a Private Armed Ship for Liverpool on 15th November, and the remainder are sent home by the present opportunity ..." ^[xxxviii]

The departure of the 32nd had been signalled by the usual notices in the Bahama Gazette in which departing officers invited creditors to submit their bills.  But their leaving went otherwise unremarked, possibly because John Wells the founding editor of the Gazette had recently died, causing a certain discontinuity of reporting.  On the eve of his departure, Major Mansergh acted as godfather to Charlotte Bayliss, daughter of William Bayliss the Provost Marshall;  and Capt Wood's slaves were baptised a few days earlier.  As the first detachment left in November, there was a spectacular and audible meteor shower, an omen perhaps of better things to come for the 32nd.^[xxxix]

Back in England at the beginning of 1800, the 32nd regrouped at Abingdon.  After a recruitment drive in the West Country they moved to Ireland where some of those who had been in Nassau were discharged after the Treaty of Amiens in 1802.  Invigorated by new blood and improved training, the regiment went on to win battle honours in the Peninsular and Waterloo campaigns.

End Notes