Part 24

Mr Howell thus comments on this second appearance of Villalunga:—

“I have observed that Caffiero added to his original testimony so much as to give to it a new character altogether; I now observe that six days after Caffiero’s amended testimony, and sixteen days after her own original examination, the woman Villalunga comes back with a new story, of which, singularly enough, the principal point is made to coincide with the alterations and emendations in the evidence of Caffiero.”

On an examination of the surviving member of the Fenic family, the widow of Fenic himself, it appears that she gave a positive denial to this alleged visit of her husband and children to the ship.

“She was at my desire,” says Mr Howell, “particularly reminded that the duty which she owed to society required her to disclose everything that she knew; and from the ingenuous manner in which her evidence was given, I am led to believe that she spoke the truth.

“She declared that she did not know the cause of her children’s illness:—‘They were attended by Dr Lopez, who is dead, and who said they had a tabardillo and indigestion, caused by eating green figs. He did not say what was the cause of the tabardillo. My husband was a cigar-maker; but he did not go on board ship either to buy tobacco or to sell cigars. Neither my husband nor my children went into the bay at any time during last summer or autumn. I know this: because if they had gone, they would have told me, and they did not tell me.’ Nor, indeed, is it to be supposed that the children would not have told their mother, and that the husband would not have told his wife, that which all of them are declared to have communicated so freely to other people.”

On being cited before a Public Notary at Gibraltar (November 14th, 1829), this witness still more particularly deposed—

“That it was utterly untrue that her husband went on board any ship in the bay at any time last summer; that on account of his age and infirmity, he had not been in a boat for ten years past; that she is equally certain that her two children never went on board any boat or ship; that, with respect to the boy Caffiero, neither she nor any of her family knew anything about him; and that his story of having gone on board the ship with her husband and her two children, ‘is a made-up falsehood.’”

Mr Howell sums up the result of his examination of the evidence adduced before the Board respecting the Fenic family in the following words:—

“Having thus examined in detail the evidence adduced to connect the illness of Salvador Fenic (the alleged first case of the epidemic) with the ‘Dygden,’—and no other vessel has been pointed at,—I find not only that it completely fails to make out even a primâ facie case, but also, from the whole complexion of the evidence, I am convinced that the story of Fenic’s visit to that vessel on the 10th of August is, from beginning to end, a fabrication.”

Apparently in anticipation of a failure to connect the illness in Fenic’s family with a foreign source, much testimony was given before the Board derived, as is stated by Mr Howell, “through channels most impure,” about instances in which foul clothes are supposed to have been brought ashore by sailors arriving from the Havannah, in the early part of the epidemic, and which foul clothes infected the washerwomen.

After showing at some length the discrepancies and contradictions which proved the whole testimony adduced on this point to be utterly worthless, Mr Howell says:—

“Here I leave the journals of washerwomen, and the tattle of their gossips, remarking this fatal objection to each washing-tub anecdote, however circumstantial, that not one of them goes back so far as to precede, and therefore to account for, the alleged first case of the epidemic, namely, that of Salvador Fenic, who, as we are told, fell ill on the 11th of August, and upon whose single case, therefore, the proof of importation rests. And if the attempt to connect the illness of Salvador Fenic with a foreign source be, as I hold it to be, a complete failure, how is the illness of the boy Caffiero to be accounted for? And to what is to be ascribed the illness of Mr Martin’s child on August 16th, a case quite as early as that of Caffiero, and which has not been attempted to be traced to importation? not one of the washing-tub cases being anterior either to that of Mr Martin’s child or to that of Caffiero, both of which are unquestioned cases of the epidemic.”

It was essential to the proof of the connection of the “Dygden” with the outbreak of the epidemic, to establish the fact of the existence of Yellow Fever on board the ship. No proof of this appears to have been adduced. On the contrary, the captain of the ship declares that no such disease existed on board; the head of the Quarantine Department, after an official examination into the fact, affirms that there is no evidence whatever to disprove the truth of the captain’s statement, and the Quarantine Medical Officer, after “a minute inspection of the captain and crew,” states that he “found them all in perfect health.”

“I have minutely inspected the captain and crew,” he says, “whom I found in perfect health. The reason for putting this ship in quarantine for 40 days was, that two men died on the passage. It is now 66 clear days since the first man died, and 61 since the death of the last, and nothing like disease has since appeared, nor have I the most distant reason to apprehend danger to the public health from any circumstances connected with the ‘Dygden.’”

Mr Howell calls special attention to this report of the medical officer:—

“This report,” he says, “was written, as it strikes me, under circumstances which entitle it to much consideration. This ship had been officially pointed out to him (as the Medical Officer of Quarantine) as being strongly suspected. The responsibility of his office was thus brought fully before his eyes, and he had then no motive for making a false report of his inspection of the ‘Dygden’s’ master and crew, because the epidemic had not at that period commenced. If he had observed any reasonable grounds for suspicion, he had only to fall in with the rumour, and recommend that none of the persons or susceptible articles on board should be permitted to land. The conduct and declarations, therefore, of Dr Hennen, as a responsible public officer, under such circumstances, when, if he erred at all, it would probably be on the side of over caution, I hold to be most material.”

Such is a fair specimen of the evidence adduced on this occasion to establish a positive case of importation. It breaks down at every point. There is complete failure in the proof that Yellow Fever existed on board the ship; there is complete failure in the proof that there was the slightest connection between the ship and any persons on shore; and there is even failure in the proof that the individuals who are alleged to have introduced the disease were really affected with a malady of the same nature as the epidemic that subsequently prevailed.

The Judge Advocate thus states the conclusion at which he arrived after a careful examination of the proceedings of the Commission:—

“I am of opinion that the evidence brought forward has totally failed to prove that the late epidemic disease was introduced from any foreign source, either by the Swedish ship ‘Dygden’ or by any other means; and I am further of opinion that the late epidemic had its origin in Gibraltar.”

Medical observers on the spot, not members of the Board, but who carefully watched its proceedings, it is believed, without any exception, arrived at the same conclusion. Thus Dr T. Smith sums up the result of his examination of the subject in the following words:—

“That it was not imported I think every candid man will admit who has deliberately weighed the evidence given on the subject before the Board of Commissioners, and the facts I have stated. Every endeavour to establish the importation doctrine has failed, and both the Colonial Secretary, Sir George Murray, and Sir James McGrigor, Director-General of the Army Medical Department, I have heard, are convinced there is not the slightest ground for such a belief; but, on the contrary, that there is every reason to suppose the disease owed its origin to causes within the walls of the garrison.”

Several comments were made by those who paid attention to the subject at the time, on the manner in which this investigation was conducted, which appear to deserve notice.

Complaints were made that the result of the inquiry was prejudged. In proof of this it was found that the President of the Board, a few days before it held its first meeting, addressed to the military secretary of the garrison an official letter in which, among other observations directly tending to a prejudgment of the case, he affirms, that “the fever in question has often been traced to importation, and against this source only must we look for its prevention.”

It appears further that before the meeting of the Board an official intimation of the views and wishes of the local authorities was promulgated in the Government Gazette, into which nothing is admitted but by authority, in the following words:—

“The scourge from which we have been by Divine Providence just delivered must be an exotic of some kind. It is in its origin independent of everything inherent in the soil which we inhabit, incapable of existing among us during the winter months, and totally distinct from and unconnected with the Remitting and Intermitting Fever, which may be said to be unknown in this garrison.”

“Two causes,” observes Mr Howell, “concurred to operate injuriously upon the proceedings of the Board: First, the conviction universally prevalent among the civil population of Gibraltar, that the prosperity of that community would be undermined if it should be proved that the epidemic had been generated on the spot, because of the prohibitions and restrictions which it was anticipated would in that case be inflicted upon its commercial intercourse with other places. Hence the notion that not only the last epidemic, but that all its predecessors had been imported from some foreign country was not only anxiously supported by the unanimous voice of the civil community, but it was with equal unanimity believed that a different doctrine would be fatal to the commercial prosperity of the place. From this feeling of self-interest it is to be admitted that the military were exempt, a distinction between the two classes which ought to be taken into account in estimating the value of the evidence taken by the Board, and more especially the evidence of the medical practitioners.

“The second cause operating injuriously upon this inquiry was the publication, in the official government newspaper (into which nothing is admitted except by official authority), on January 12, 1829, of an article authoritatively announcing that the late epidemic had been imported into Gibraltar, and denouncing as void of common sense any person who should hold a different opinion. This official notification of the feelings of the local Government (preceding as it did by only 12 days the appointment of the Board of Inquiry) could hardly fail to encourage evidence on one side, and discourage evidence on the other.”

Complaints were also made that there was a partial selection of witnesses.