164 CAPTAIN ZACHARY G. LAMSON 



appearance of the young men in Newburn 

 with our own companions, we ceased to 

 wonder that we were noticed as we were. 

 On our return from Carolina I embarked 

 with Captain Gideon Rea 1 in a schooner 

 belonging to Messrs. Stephens of Beverly 

 and E. Francis of Boston for Jacmel and 

 Aux Cayes. We arrived out safe after a 

 passage of twenty-eight days and vessel 

 leaking badly. We sold part at Jacmel and 

 proceeded for Aux Cayes, where we sold the 

 remainder and found it very sickly, the 

 fever raging badly. 2 We had finished load- 



1 Gideon Ray was the son of Joseph Ray of North 

 Beverly. Joseph Ray was captain of a company, raised 

 in Beverly and Lynn, which fought with Washington in 

 New Jersey. 



2 The mortality among the crews of vessels trading 

 with the West Indies was very great. Vessels would leave 

 the West India ports with a full crew and later be found 

 drifting helpless with only a man or two aboard. The 

 Boston Chronicle of June 12, 1802, reports that the 

 schooner " Hope," from Jamaica to Boston, was spoken 

 May 10, " all the crew dead with yellow fever, except the 

 captain and boy." The ship "Lucia" arrived from 

 Havana, July 16, 1769, having lost eleven of her crew 

 from yellow fever. 



