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From close
confinement under hatches, ill-nourishment and foul water, a
sickness broke out amongst them, of which eleven died. Amongst
these was the unfortunate yeoman from Oglethorpe's Farm, brutally
torn from his quiet homestead amid the fragrant cider orchards
for no other sin but that he had practised mercy.
The mortality might have been higher than it was but for Peter Blood.
At first the master of the Jamaica Merchant had answered with oaths
and threats the doctor's expostulations against permitting men to
perish in this fashion, and his insistence that he should be made
free of the medicine chest and given leave to minister to the sick.
But presently Captain Gardner came to see that he might be brought
to task for these too heavy losses of human merchandise and because
of this he was belatedly glad to avail himself of the skill of Peter
Blood. The doctor went to work zealously and zestfully, and wrought
so ably that, by his ministrations and by improving the condition of
his fellow-captives, he checked the spread of the disease.


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