[ 3 8 7 ] 
fionary at the Vineyard, of each of whom I made 
the moft fcrupulous inquiry, you may depend on 
the truth of it. 
About the beginning of Auguft, 1763, when the 
licknefs began at Nantucket, the whole number of 
Indians belonging to that ifland was 358: of thefe, 
258 had the diftemper betwixt that time and the 
20 th of February following, 36 only of whom re- 
covered : of the 100, who efcaped the diftemper, 34 
were converfant with the lick, eight dwelt leparate, 
18 were at fea, and 40 lived in Englifli families. 
The phylician informs me, that the blood and juices 
appeared to be highly putrid, and that the difeafe was 
attended with a violent inflammatory fever, which 
carried them oflf in about five days. The feafon was 
uncommonly moift and cold, and the diftemper be- 
gan originally among them ; but having once made 
its appearance feems to have been propagated by con- 
tagion ; although fome efcaped it, who were expofed 
to the infedtion. 
The diftemper made its appearance at Martha's 
Vineyard the beginning of December, 1763- It 
went through every family, into which it came, not 
one efcaping it : fifty-two Indians had it, 39 of whom 
died ; thofe, who recovered, were chiefly of the 
younger fort. 
The appearance of the diftemper was much the 
fame in both thefe iflands; it carried them off in 
each, in five or fix days. What is ftili more re- 
markable than even the great mortality of the di- 
ftemper is, that not one Englifli perfon had it in 
either of the iflands, although the Englifli greatly 
exceed in numbers 5 and that fome perlons in one 
D d d 2 family 
