The Loyalist Who Gave Birth to His Nightmare

As his London Packet approached the colonies in November 1774, Thomas Paine was not scanning for land. After turning northwards towards Philadelphia in Delaware Bay, the former privateer was not visualizing where, during the Seven Years War, French privateer ships awaited English prey within the folds of the eastern shore.[1] Stricken with typhus fever that had ravaged his ship, the delirious and barely conscious Paine was confined to his cabin.[2]

Dr. John Kearsley, Jr., taking him on as a patient, had him brought “on Shore” and “provided a Lodging.”[3] Paine later reported to Benjamin Franklin, whose letter of introduction graced Paine’s meager belongings, that six weeks in Kearsley’s care resulted in full recovery.[4]

Paine biographers assert that Kearsley became involved because he heard about an ill passenger with a letter from Franklin, which motivated Kearsley to have the passenger brought to him.[5] One biographer even fancifully claimed that the captain alerted Kearsley about Paine who then stayed with the captain’s family members in Philadelphia while Paine recovered.[6]

With many other doctors then practicing in Philadelphia, why Kearsley?[7] Paine provided the answer: Kearsley “attended the Ship on her Arrival.”[8] Presumably appointed by the governor under Pennsylvania law to inspect the infected ship, and learning of Paine and the Franklin letter during that inspection, he did not hear it through the grapevine.[9]

Biographers who specify where the ship docked and Paine’s care occurred assume Philadelphia locations.[10] Instead, Pennsylvania law required infected ships to moor seven nautical miles downriver, a place where those with infectious diseases were quarantined.[11] By 1743, Philadelphia built a “pest hospital” on Province Island “for the purpose of quarantining the sick who arrived by ship.”[12] The 1774 law prohibited ships “disordered with any infectious disease” from coming closer than Mud Island and required quarantine of infected persons on adjacent Province Island.[13]