Whereof the timber and roof The timber alone to Which, if furnished from the yard, the whole charge of the building will be reduced to So as the number of beds, diminished cradles, and attendance proportionable, the furniture complete will cost Total 127 18 480 0 0 £1607 18 0 According to the formerly-made estimate; and which whole charge will be saved in quarters of 400 men only, within six months and about fifteen days, at six-pence per head, being no less than £10 per diem, £70 per week, £280 per month, £3640 per annum; which is more than double what his Majesty is at in one year's quarters for them in private houses; besides all the incomparable advantages enumerated in the subsequent paper, which will perpetually hold upon this, or any the like occasion: the quartering of so many persons at six-pence per diem amounting to no less than 7280d. per annum. If this shall be esteemed inconvenient, because of disfurnishing the yard, or otherwise a temptation to embezzle the timber of the yard: All the materials bought as above Total £1487 18 0 480 0 0 £1967 18 0 The whole expense will be reimbursed in eight months viz. in 400 men's diet alone, by sixpence per diem 378d. per month 4536d. per annum 627 0 0 per month 7526 8 0 per annum £2990 8 0 Note, that the salary of the steward (who buys all provisions, pays and keeps the account, takes charge of the sick when set on shore, and discharges them when recovered, &c.) is not computed in this estimate: because it is the same which our clerks and deputies do by the present establishment. Thus I deduce the particulars: Chirurgeons seven: viz. three master-chirurgeons, at 6s. per diem each; mates four, at 4s. each; diet for 400, 2807.; one matron, per week, 10s.; twenty nurses, at 5s. per week; fire, candles, soap, &c., 3d. per week £ 280 56 42 £378 per month Cradle-beds, 200, at 118. per cradle, at 44 feet wide, 6 long 110 0 0 300 0 0 70 0 0 But I do farther affirm, and can demonstrate, that sup- £480 0 0 1859 18 0 582 10 0 Then would be saved to his Majesty 3321. 18s. per month, 39947. 16s. per annum. So that in less than eight months time there will be saved, in the quarters of 500 men alone, more money than the whole expense amounts to; 500 men's quarters at 18. per diem coming to £25 per diem, £175 per week, £700 per month, £9108 per annum. Upon which I assume, if £3994, by five hundred men, or £3640 in four hundred men, or, lastly, if but £2990 be saved in one year in the quarters of 400 sick persons, &c. there would a far greater sum be saved in more than 6000 men; there having been sent 7000 sick and wounded men to cure in my district only, and of those 2800 put on shore at Chatham and Rochester, for which station I proposed the remedy. Now, 500 sick persons quartered in a town at the victuallers and scattered ale-houses (as the custom is), will take up at least 160 houses, there being very few of those miserable places which afford accommodation for about two or three in a house; with, frequently at greater distances, employ of chirurgeons, nurses, and officers, innumerable; so as when we have been distressed for chirurgeons, some of them (upon computation) walked six miles every day, by going but from quarter to quarter, and not being able to visit their patients as they ought: whereas, in our hospitals, they are continually at hand. We have essayed to hire some capacicus empty houses, but could never meet with any tolerably convenient; and to have many, or more than one, would be chargeable and very troublesome. By our infirmary, then we have these considerable advantages. At six-pence per diem each (in the way of commons), the sick shall have as good, and much more proper and wholesome diet, than now they have in the ale-houses, where they are fed with trash, and embezzle their money more to inflame themselves, and retard and destroy their cures out of ignorance or intemperance; whiles a sober matron governs the nurses, looks to their provisions, rollers, linen, &c. And the nurses attend the sick, wash, sweep, and serve the offices, the cook and laundrer comprehended in the number, and at the same rate, &c. By this method, likewise, are the almost indefinite number of chirurgeons and officers exceedingly reduced; the sick dieted, kept from drink and intemperance, and consequently, from most unavoidably relapsing. They are hindered from wandering, slipping away, and dispersion. They are more sedulously attended; the physician better inspects the chirurgeons, who neither can nor will be in all places, as now they are scattered, in the nasty corners of the towns. They are sooner and more certainly cured (for I have at present near thirty beds employed in a barn at Gravesend, which has taught us much of this experience), they are received and discharged with infinite more ease. Our accounts better and more exactly kept. A vast and very considerable sum is saved (not to say gained) to his Majesty. The materials of the house will be good, if taken down; or, if let stand, it may serve, in time of peace, for a store or workhouse; the furniture will (much of it) be useful upon like occasion; and, what is to be esteemed none of the least virtues of it, it will totally cure the altogether intolerable clamour and difficulties of rude and ungrateful people, their landlords and nurses, raised by their poverty upon the least obstruction of constant and weekly pays; for want of which, they bring an ill repute on his Majesty's service, and incense the very magistrates and better sort of inhabitants (neighbours to them), who too frequently promote (I am sorry to speak it) their mutinies; so as they have been sometimes menacing to expose our men in the streets, where some have most inhospitably perished. In fine, this would encounter all objections whatsoever; is an honourable, charitable, and frugal provision; effectual, full of encouragement, and very practicable; so as, however, for the present it may be considered, I cannot but persist in wishing it might be resolved upon towards autumn at the farthest; Chatham and Rochester alone, having, within seventeen or eighteen months, cost his Majesty full £13,000, in cures and quarters; half whereof would have near been saved had this method been established. Add to this, the almost constant station of his Majesty's ships at the buoy in the Nore, and river of Chatham; the clamour of that place against our quartering these, this crazy time; and the altogether impossibility of providing elsewhere for such numbers as continually press in upon us there, more than any where else, after actions, or the return of any of his Majesty's fleet: which, with what has been offered, may recommend this project, by your favourable representation of the premises, for a permanent establishment in that place especially, if his Majesty and Royal Highness so think meet. This account, being what I have been able to lay before you, as the effects of my late inspection upon the places, by commands of the Honourable the Principal Officers, I request through your hands may be addressed to them from, Sir, Your most obedient servant, J. EVELYN. We might this summer burn our own bricks, and procure timber at the best hand, which would save a considerable charge. John Evelyn to Sir Samuel Tuke. Sayes-Court, 27 Sep. 1665. SIB, It was some four days before the most fatal conflagration of the (quondam) City of London that I addressed a few lines to you, little thinking I should so soon have had two such dissolutions to deplore,-the burning of the best town in the world, and the decease of the best friend in the world, your excellent lady. Sir, you know they are but small afflictions that are loquacious-great ones are silent; and if ever great ones there were, mine eyes have beheld, and mine ears heard them, with an heart so possessed of sorrow, that it is not easily expressed; because the instances have been altogether stupendous and unparalleled. But it were in vain to entertain you with those formal topics, which are wont to be applied to persons of less fortitude and Christian resignation, though I cannot but exhort you to what, I know, you do-look upon all things in this world as transitory and perishing; sent us upon condition of quitting them cheerfully, when God pleases to take them from us. This consideration alone (with the rest of those graces which God has furnished you with) will be able to alleviate your passion, and to preserve you from succumbing under your pressures, which I confess are weighty, but not insupportable. Live therefore, I conjure you, and help to restore our dear country, and to consolate your friends. There is none alive wishes you more sincere happiness than my poor family. I suppose I should have heard ere this from you of all your concernments, but impute your silence to some possible miscarriage of your letters; since the usual place of address is with the rest reduced to ashes, and made an heap of ruins. I would give you a more particular relation of this calamitous accident; but I should oppress you with sad stories, and I question not but they are come too soon amongst you at Paris with all minuteness, and (were it possible) hyperboles. There is this yet of less deplorable in it: that, as it has pleased God to order it, little effects of any great consequence have been lost, besides the houses; that our merchants, at the same instant in which it was permitted that the tidings should fly over seas, had so settled all their affairs, as the complying with their foreign correspondence, as punctually as if no disaster at all had happened; nor do we hear of so much as one that has failed. The Exchange is now at Gresham College. The rest of the City (which may consist of near a seventh part), and suburbs, peopled with new shops; the same |