hose whose respect I value;
and as to the offer of bleaching me, I should, even if it were
practicable, decline it without any thanks. As to the society which
the process might gain me admission into, all I can say is, that,
judging from the specimens I have met here and elsewhere, I don't think
that I shall lose much by being excluded from it. So, gentlemen, I
drink to you, and the general reformation of American manners.'

In 1853 Mary Seacole returned to Jamaica, and before she had been there
many weeks yellow fever broke out. It was the worst outbreak that had
occurred for many years, and soon Mary Seacole's boarding-house was
full of patients, chiefly officers, their wives and children. In
nursing her boarders, and procuring proper food for them, Mary Seacole
had more work than most women would care to undertake; but when the
military authorities asked her to organise a start of nurses to attend
to the men in Up-Park Camp, Kingston, she set to work on this
additional task, and, carrying it out with her customary thoroughness,
rendered a great service to the army.

After the yellow fever had subsided Mary Seacole sold her
boarding-house, and opened a store in New Granada, where she speedily
obtained popularity because of her medical skill. On war being
declared against Russia, she determined to go to the Crimea to nurse
the sick and wounded, and started for London as quickly as possible,
arriving there soon after the news of the battle of Alma had been
received. She had anticipated no difficulty in getting sent to the
front, as there were many officers who could testify to her nursing
abilities; but she found on arriving in London that every regiment to
whom she was known had been sent to the Crimea. However, as the news
of the sufferings of our men at the front had reached London, and the
necessity of nurses being sent out was recognised, she imagined that
her services would be promptly accepted.

Soon she found, greatly to her sorrow, that the colour of her skin was
considered, in official circles, a barrier to her employment. She
applied in turn at the War Office, the Quartermaster General's
Department, the Medical Department, and the Crimea Fund, but at each
place some polite excuse was made for declining her services. It was
indeed a foolish act on the part of the officials. Nurses were sorely
needed, and here was Mary Seacole, who had far greater experience of
nursing British soldiers than any wom