Note 18 — Chapter V · AMONG THE GALLAPAGOS ISLANDS AND AT GORGONA ROAD IN PERU.

Even in Nelson's time, and later, it was not unusual to find women, the wives of petty officers, on board a man-of-war in commission, who acted as washerwomen, and helped the surgeons and their mates in the sick-bay, or on the orlop deck among the wounded in time of action; and the author can remember one of these old ladies, about forty years ago, living in the island of Jersey with her husband, a retired gunner, who had been in the actions of the Nile and Trafalgar.