176 TRAVELS THROTflGH NORTH AMERICA f 
entirely from the West Indies,, and principally 
from St. Domingo. In such prodigious num¬ 
bers did they flock over after the British force* 
had got footing in the French islands, that be¬ 
tween two and three thousand were in Norfolk 
at one time ; most of them, however, after¬ 
wards dispersed themselves throughout dif¬ 
ferent parts of the country; those who staid 
in the town opened little shops of different 
kinds, and amongst them I found many who 
had been in affluent circumstances before they 
were driven from their homes. 
A strong party spirit has always been pre¬ 
valent amongst the American inhabitants of 
this town ,* so much so, that a few years ago, 
built, and where the streets have been suffered through 
negligence to remain foul and nasty ; in the second place, it 
has regularly broken out during the hottest time of the 
year, in the month of July and August, when the air on 
the American coast is for the most part stagnant and sultry, 
and when vegetable and animal matter becomes putrid in 
an incredible short space of time; thirdly, numbers of 
people died of the disorder in New York, in the year ] 796 , 
notwithstanding that every West Indian vessel which en¬ 
tered the port that season was examined by the health of¬ 
ficer, a regular bred physician, and that every one suspect¬ 
ed was obliged to perform quarantine. The people in New 
York are so fully persuaded that the fever originates in 
America from putrid matter, that they have stopped up 
one or two docks, which were receptacles for the filth of 
the neighbourhood, and which contaminated the air when 
the tide was out. 
