Concerning the history of the subjoined curious narrative, the original manuscript of which, written in now faded ink on the rough dingy paper of sixty years ago, was placed in my hands in the course of a recent visit to America, only a few words are necessary. The narrative is addressed to “Mrs. Rodgers and sister,” and bears to have been written at the request of the former lady, after its author’s return from sea on the termination of his service as surgeon of the President frigate, the famous fighting cruiser of the American Republic in the war with England of 1812–14. Commodore Rodgers, who commanded the President during the war, and who was the husband of the lady for whom the account was written, gave to Dr. Turk’s narrative his endorsement of its perfect accuracy. Of the authenticity of the document there can be no possibility of doubt.

Narrative

“Although the events now for the first time recorded occurred ten years since, they are still fresh in my recollection, and have made so strong an impression on my mind that time can never obliterate them. They partake so much of the marvellous that I would not dare to commit them to paper were there not so many living witnesses to the truth of the facts narrated, some of them of the greatest respectability, even sanctioned by Commodore Rodgers. The story is considered by all who have heard it too interesting to be lost; I therefore proceed to the task while those are in existence who can confirm it. Living in an enlightened age and country, when bigotry and superstition have nearly lost their influence over the minds of men, particularly among the citizens of this republic, where knowledge is so universally diffused, I have often been deterred from relating circumstances so wonderful as to stagger the belief of the most credulous. But facts are stubborn things, and the weight of testimony in this case cannot be resisted. Unable for want of time and room to enter so far into particulars as I should wish, I will give, to the best of my recollection, the most prominent and striking occurrences, in the order in which they took place, without comment or embellishment.

“Some time in the latter part of December 1813, a man by the name of William Kemble, aged about twenty-three (a seaman on board of the U.S. Frigate President, commanded by Commodore John Rodgers, on a cruise, then near the Western Islands), was brought to me from one of the tops, in which he was stationed, having burst a vessel in his lungs, being at the time in great danger of instant death, the blood gushing with great violence from his mouth and nostrils. With much difficulty I succeeded in stopping the discharge, and he was put upon the use of remedies suited to his case. I visited him often, and had the best of opportunity of becoming acquainted with his temper, habits, and intellectual attainments; and under all circumstances, during his illness, found his language and behaviour such as stamped him the rough, profane, and illiterate sailor. It is my belief, although I cannot positively assert it, that he could not either read or write. It is certain that his conversation never differed in the least from that of the most ignorant and abandoned of his associates, constantly mixed with oaths and the lowest vulgarity. Had he possessed talents, or learning, he must have betrayed it to me during his long confinement.

“In the early part of January (1814), a vessel bore down upon us, with every appearance of being an English frigate. All hands were called to quarters, and after a short and animated address by the Commodore to the crew, all prepared to do their duty. Before I descended to the cockpit, well knowing Kemble’s spirit and how anxious he would be to partake in the glory of the victory (defeat never entered our thoughts), I thought it best to visit him. After stating to him the peculiar situation he was in, and the great danger he would be exposed to by the least emotion, I entreated him and ordered him not to stir during the action, which he promised to observe. We were soon obliged to fire. At the sound of the first gun he could restrain himself no longer, but, regardless of my admonitions and of his own danger, he rushed upon deck and flew to his gun, laying hold to help run her out. A fresh and tremendous discharge from his lungs was the consequence, and he was brought down to me again in a most deplorable state. I apprehended immediate death, but by the application of the proper remedies, I succeeded once more in stopping the hÆmorrhage, by which he was reduced to a state of the most extreme debility. Being near the equator, and suffering much from heat, his hammock was slung on the gun deck between the ports, affording the best circulation of air. He continued for some time free from hÆmorrhage, but was under the constant use of medicine, and was confined to a particular diet. This made him fretful, and he would frequently charge my mates with starving him, at the same time damning them in the true sailor fashion. After some time, the crew being again called to quarters at night, he was necessarily removed below to the sick berth (commonly called bay). This was followed by another discharge of blood from his lungs, which was renewed at intervals until his death.

“On January 17, in the afternoon, Dr. Birchmore, my first mate, came to me on deck, and reported Kemble to be dead. I directed him to see that his messmates did what was usual on such occasions preparatory to committing his remains to the deep. About two hours after this, Dr. Birchmore again called on me. He said that Kemble had come to life, and was holding forth to the sailors in a strange way. I directly went down, where I witnessed one of the most remarkable and unaccountable transactions that perhaps had ever fallen to the lot of man to behold. Kemble had awakened as it were from sleep, raised himself up, and called for his messmates in particular, and those men who were not on duty, to attend to his words. He told them he had experienced death, but was allowed a short space of time to return and give them, as well as the officers, some directions for their future conduct in life. In this situation I found him, surrounded by the crew, all mute with astonishment, and paying the most serious attention to every word that escaped from his lips. The oldest men were in tears, not a dry eye was to be seen or a whisper heard; all was as solemn and as silent as the grave. His whole body was as cold as death could make it. There was no pulsation perceptible at the wrists, the temples, or the chest. His voice was clear and powerful, his eyes uncommonly brilliant and animated. After a short and pertinent address to the medical gentlemen, he told me in a peremptory manner to bring Commodore Rodgers to him, as he had something to say to him before he finally left us. The Commodore consented to go with me, when a scene was presented, truly novel and indescribable, and calculated to fill with awe the stoutest heart. The sick bay (or berth) in which he lay is entirely set apart to the use of those who are confined to their beds by illness. Supported by the surgeons, surrounded by his weeping and astonished comrades, a crowd of spectators looking through the lattice-work which enclosed the room, a common japanned lamp throwing out a sickly light, and a candle held opposite his face by an attendant, such was the situation of things when our worthy Commander made his appearance; and well does he remember the effect produced by so uncommon a spectacle, especially when followed by the utterance of these words from the mouth of one long supposed to have been dead: ‘Commodore Rodgers, I have sent for you, sir; being commissioned by a higher power to address you for a short time, and to deliver the message entrusted to me when I was permitted to revisit the earth. Once I trembled in your presence, and was eager to obey your commands; but now I am your superior, being no longer an inhabitant of the earth. I have seen the glories of the world of spirits. I am not permitted to make known what I have beheld; indeed, were I not forbidden, language would be inadequate to the task; ’tis enough for you and the crew to know that I have been sent back to earth to reanimate for a few hours my lifeless body, commissioned by God to perform the work I am now engaged in.’ He then, in language so chaste and appropriate as would not have disgraced the lips or the pen of a divine, took a hasty view of the moral and religious duties incumbent on the commander of a ship of war. He reviewed the vices prevalent on ship-board, pointed out the relative duties of officers and men, and concluded by urging the necessity of reformation and repentance. He did not, as was feared by our brave commander, attempt to prove the sinfulness of fighting and wars, but, on the contrary, warmly recommended to the men the performance of their duty to their country with courage and fidelity. His speeches occupied about three-quarters of an hour, and if the whole could have been taken down at the time, they would have made a considerable pamphlet, which would no doubt have been in great demand. Dr. Birchmore, now at Boston, heard all the addresses, I only the last.

When he finished with the Commodore, his head dropped upon his breast, his eyes closed, and he appeared to have passed through a second death. No pulsation nor the least degree of warmth could be perceived during the time that he was speaking. I ordered him to be laid aside, and left him. I was soon sent for into the cabin, where the Commodore required from me an explanation of the case on rational and philosophical principles. This I endeavoured to give. I but in part succeeded. It would swell this narrative too much to repeat all I said in endeavouring to elucidate the subject. At best it proved a lame attempt, for when asked how this man, without education, reading, or mixing in other society than that of common sailors, should acquire the command of the purest language, properly arranged, and delivered clearly, distinctly, with much animation and great effect?—to this question I gave no reply, as it was, and ever will remain, inexplicable, without admitting supernatural agency. The days of miracles are past, and I know I shall be laughed at by many for dwelling on, or even repeating, this story. But never, since I arrived at the years of discretion, has anything taken a stronger hold upon my mind, and that man must have been made of strange materials who could have been an indifferent spectator. Was he divinely illuminated? was he inspired? or was the whole the effect of natural causes? These are questions which must have arisen in the minds of many, and which must be left for the learned of two professions to answer.

“I retired to bed, deeply reflecting upon the past, unable to sleep, when about nine o’clock P.M., many hours after Kemble had been laid by, I was called out of bed to visit a man taken suddenly ill in his hammock, hanging near Kemble’s apartment. It was an hour when all but the watch on deck had turned in; general silence reigned, and all the lights below put out, with the exception of a single lamp in the sick apartment, where lay the remains of Kemble. I had bled the sick man—he was relieved. I entered the sick-room before I retired to replace something, and was turning round to leave it, being alone, when suddenly I was almost petrified upon beholding Kemble sitting up in his berth, with his eyes (which had regained their former brilliancy and intelligence) fixed intently upon mine. I became, for a moment, speechless and motionless. Thinks I to myself, what have I done, or left undone, in this man’s case, that should cause him thus to stare at me, at this late hour, and I alone? I waited a long time in painful suspense, dreading some horrid disclosure, when I was relieved by his commanding me to fetch him some water. With what alacrity I obeyed can easily be imagined. I gave him a tin mug containing water, which he put to his mouth, drank off the contents, and returned to me; then laid himself quietly down for the last time. His situation was precisely the same in every respect as before described. The time was now expired which, he had said, was given him to remain in the body. The next day by noon, all hands attended as usual to hear the funeral service read, and see his remains consigned to a watery grave. It was an unusually solemn period. Seamen are naturally superstitious, and on this occasion their minds had been wrought upon in a singular manner. Decorum is always observed by sailors at such times; but now they were all affected to tears, and when the body was slid from the plank into the sea, every one rushed instinctively to the ship’s side to take a last look. The usual weights had been attached to the feet, yet, as if in compliance with his comrades’ anxiety to see more of him, the body rose perpendicularly from the water breast-high two or three times. This incident added greatly to the astonishment already created in the minds of the men. I beg leave to remark that it was not thought proper to keep the body longer in the warm latitude we were in.

“I have now given a short and very imperfect sketch of the important events attending the last illness and death of William Kemble. It is submitted to the ladies in this state, begging they will excuse haste and inaccuracy. The change produced upon the crew was for a time very remarkable. It appeared as if they would never smile or swear again. The effect wore off by degrees, except when the subject was renewed.

W. Turk.”

Apart altogether from the weirdness of it, worthy Dr. Turk’s simply-told story is full of interest, by reason of the side-light it throws on the nautical character of his time. No maker of phrases is the honest naval surgeon. A fight the good man curtly accepts as in the day’s work; and as all “prepare to do their duty,” he “descends into the cockpit” to do his, in the serene assurance of victory, since “defeat never entered our thoughts,” and the mere reference thereto is contemptuously relegated to a parenthesis. So matter-of-fact is he, so doggedly does he stick to the topic he has in hand, that he has not a word to spare to describe the fight, or to tell of its issue. That is outside his task. He has stayed on deck, indeed, to hear the Commodore’s “short and animated address,” and then his place is in the cockpit, with his instruments out, his coat off, and his shirt-sleeves turned up, waiting for what contributions the effort to attain the “glory of the victory” may send down the ladder to him.

But as he goes he thinks of his patient. Quite an ordinary sea-dog, this patient, clearly, in the surgeon’s estimation. “The rough, profane, illiterate sailor” of the period—proved by his conversation to be “ignorant and abandoned”; destitute utterly of talents and learning. No word of approval for this waif from out the “tops” has the laconic surgeon; yet, although seemingly because it was so commonplace an attribute that he does not care to go out of his way to apply the term, he has discerned in him the spirit of heroism. So he condemns William Kemble to death, should he stir; and further, he bethinks himself of the force of discipline, and so adds to his representations as a surgeon his order as an officer. William Kemble, as well he might, has promised obedience; but the “sound of the first gun” overcomes at once the assurance of death and the bonds of discipline. Little good can “the glory of the victory” work for this “rough, profane, and illiterate sailor.” It is the fighting impulse in him, the ardour of the fray, as Kinglake has it, that conquers death and discipline, whistles down the wind “my admonitions and his own danger.” And so, by and by, after he has survived to characteristically damn the surgeon’s mates “in true sailor fashion” for starving him, William Kemble removed to the “sick berth, commonly called bay,” finds that there is no more fight left in him, and Dr. Birchmore comes on deck and reports him dead.

The present writer considers himself specially fortunate in that no commodore requires from him an explanation “on rational and philosophical principles” of the question, which worthy Dr. Turk leaves “for the learned of two professions to answer.” Certain theories might be diffidently put forward, and Kemble, spite of Dr. Turk’s adverse diagnosis, might have been a gentleman before his conversation sank to the level of “that of the most ignorant and abandoned of his associates,” while the dramatic instincts belonging to others of his name may have kindled in him in the interval of a syncope that simulated actual dissolution. Dr. Turk, with naÏve frankness, confesses that his effort to elucidate the subject was but “a lame attempt”; and why need one who is not of the “learned of two professions” wantonly risk a like judgment?