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Some Account of James Yonge, Esq. of Postlynch, Devon; Surgeon

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Some Account of James Yonge, Esq. of Postlynch, Devon; Surgeon Art IX.- -Some Account of James Yonge, Esq. of Post- lynch, Devon ; Surgeon, Plymouth, and Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians, London; the Original Proposer of the use of Oil of Turpentine as a Styptic. From authentic docu- ments communicated by his representatives. James Yonge was born at Plymouth, in the county of Devon, on the eleventh of March, sixteen hundred and forty-six, and was baptized on the 27th February 1647, in St Andrew's Church of that town, by Mr George Hughes, vicar of the same. His father was John Yonge of Plymouth, but who had previously come from Sturminster-Newton in Dorsetshire, and originally had been settled at Lansend, in the parish of Colbrooke. His mother was Joanna Blackaller. His father appears to have been a prac- titioner of surgery. When nine years of age he had learned to read and write; and he was then placed at the grammar school under Mr A. Horsemann, where, in the course of two years, he passed through the usual forms, and began to read the Metamorphoses of Ovid. Any scholastic instruction which James Yonge received must have been slender. It is manifest, nevertheless, from his writ- ings, that his education was good. He must, therefore, have had good natural talents, and cultivated them with some industry. At this school he had been little more than two years, when his father, having disposed of his elder brother, John Yonge, Account of James Yonge. 415 bound James in 1657 for eight years to Mr Silvester Richmond* who was at that time surgeon of the Constant Warwick, carrying 31 guns and 150 men, commanded by Captain Robert Yoysey. This situation appears to have furnished him with the first means which he enjoyed of studying the principles and practice of sur- gery. He enjoyed neither the advantage of residence at either of the universities, or of hearing such lectures, or receiving such in- structions, as were at that time delivered in London. To those who know the course of medical and surgical education since that time, it must appear singular to learn, that the only professional education which a surgeon obtained, was on board of a sloop of war, under the eye of the surgeon, and as his assistant. Such, however, was the fact; and it appears further, from the accounts left by Mr Yonge himself, that he was not the only apprentice whom the surgeon, Mr Richmond, was allowed to receive on ship- board. It appears that a Mr Jinkinson was also trained in the same school, at apparently the same time as James Yonge. Of Silvester Richmond, who subsequently settled as a surgeon in Liverpool, Mr Yonge long after speaks in terms of great respect and gratitude. Subsequent accounts show that the situation it- self was far from being desirable. At this time the British dominions were governed by Oliver Cromwell, who, after having effected a pacification of the domestic discords rather superficial and temporary, was anxious to support his power and influence by foreign conquests and naval expedi- tions. In the spring of 1655, Penn and Venables were sent to the West Indies with a force of 4000 men, in order to attack the Spanish settlements in Hispaniola and Jamaica. In the attack on the former the English were unsuccessful, being finally repelled from the island by the Spaniards. In the expedition to the latter they succeeded. The result of this violation of treaty was an immediate declaration of war in 1656 by the Spaniards against England; and the ships of that nation accordingly infested the coasts of England and the seas frequented by British ships, and caused much damage by the captures which they made. On the 14th February 1657 the Constant Warwick was or- dered on a cruise, in company with the Adventure frigate, to repel the attacks of the Spanish vessels; and in her sailed James Yonge at the age of 11 years, to act as surgeon's apprentice. The cruising ground appears to have been the chops of the channel, the south coast of Ireland, and the west coast of France. He seems on this cruise to have seen service ; for the Adventure and her consort met with the Michael, a Spanish corvette, a Biscayan of St Sebastian, 28 guns and 180 men. The Spaniard, by a vi- gorous broadside, first disabled the Adventure, and then came down on the Constant Warwick, thinking she was a merchant** 416 Account of James Yonge. vessel under convoy. The Constant Warwick fought the Spaniard for five hours, shot away his masts, and killed many of his men ; while the Englishman had only two men wounded. The Spaniard was captured, and she was afterwards used as an English vessel under the name of the Coventry. In 1658 the Constant Warwick put into Kinsale for a short time. Near the Scilly Islands they took another vessel, a snow, of 4 guns. At this time, on the 3d September 1658, he states in his diary, died Oliver Cromwell ; and soon after, near Scilly, they encountered so violent a storm, that James Yonge was nearly washed overboard. They again sailed from Plymouth, and touched at Morlaix, on the coast of France, Torbay, on the Devon- shire coast, St Maloes, Guernsey, and Jersey, and again returned to Plymouth. In 1659 they received orders to cruise off the coast of Bretagne, and visited several of the islands there, as Ushant Belleisle. In the summer of this year, the Constant Warwick cruised over the same seas, visiting Falmouth, Kinsale, Cork, and in the month of June the Downs, Dover, Woolwich, and London. At this time the cruise was directed to the North Sea, and they touched at Hamburgh and Heligoland. Upon returning to Plymouth they were ordered to act as convoy to a fleet to Rochelle; and in this short run he states that one ship struck on the Eddystone, on which at that time there was no lighthouse. Soon after, and in the course of the same year, he had occasion to witness an incident, which shows the lawless and violent cha- racter of the nautical adventurers in those days. Being for ten days off the Land's End, they saw a large ship with a small one close beside her. As the Constant Warwick approached them, the small vessel stood inward, while the large ship waited till the Constant came up. The captain of the large vessel now informed the English commander that he was from Hamburgh, and that the small vessel had boarded and was plundering his ship. Cap- tain Yoysey gave chase to the pirate, who was desirous to get his vessel among the shallows, by running close in shore in Whitsand Bay. The Constant Warwick fired, and in the presence of great multitudes who had come out to see the affair, captured the pic* caroon, as Mr Yonge terms the vessel of the pirate. In 1660-61, being left in Portsmouth while the Princess Henrietta went to France to marry the Duke of Anjou, Mr Yonge spent the time in reading, in the study of botany, and the vegetable materia medica. This space extended from the 10th or 11th of January to the beginningof April. In May the same year, when he could not be more than 14 years of age, he states that he was appointed as chirurgeon's as- sistant to the Montague, of 64 guns, and 250 men, which formed Account of James Yonge. 417 one of the fleet lying at the Downs, under Lord Sandwich, con- sisting of 13 ships, one eighty-four, one seventy-two, three sixty- fours, three fifty-twos, three forty-six gun-ships, one of 34, and one of 28 guns. Much speculation and inquiry were at this time excited on the destination of this large naval force; some imagining it was to proceed against Algiers and the Moors; others, that it was to make an attack on the Dutch possessions in the East Indies. Meanwhile, either the whole fleet, or part of it, and, among others, the Montague, sailed for Algiers, where they arrived in the course of a few weeks. There, after a preliminary reconnoitring in boats, they commenced an attack, which was well-resisted by the Algerines. The fighting and bombardment lasted six hours, in the course of which the Montague had one officer, the boat- swain, and one man killed, and four men wounded. One of the wounded men died. Though this was not the first introduction of James Yonge to the casualties and accidents of combats by sea, it made him feel most acutely all the hardships to which the sur- geon's assistants were in those days subjected, especially after a battle. He went down, he tells us, to dress the wounded men, who were placed on heaps of clothes to make it soft for them. Here he had not only to dress wounds, but to per- form all those menial duties which are at present done by nurses and surgery attendants. To boil gruel, to make barley- waier for the sufferers, to prepare fomentations and poultices, to wash and dry bandages and rollers, to administer glysters, to make even the hammocks, to shave and trim any one requiring it?such were the duties, besides the ordinary business of spreading ointments and plasters, which it fell to the lot of James Yonge to perform, when surgeon's assistant in the Montague. For three days after the fight they lay before Algiers, and there the Mon- tague and some other ships were ordered to sail for Lisbon.
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