Our author considers the above account as a full proof of the plague being imported by Chataud’s vessel: he declines entering into the question about the _possibility_ of importing contagion in merchandise. How this _might_ take place has already been explained; and the present instance of its having been imported is as clearly proved as can be expected. A collateral proof, with regard to the contagion of the small-pox, we have from Dr. Huxham. A beggar, ill of that disease, approached a certain town in England, but was not suffered to enter, for fear of infection. The beggar died, and the infected clothes were burnt at some distance from the town; but the smoke being blown upon it by the wind, the small-pox in a short time made its appearance, beginning in that part upon which the smoke was blown. This clearly proves that _one_ species of contagion may adhere to clothes, and is a very strong presumption that any other may do the same. It also shows that contagion, when once produced, is by no means easily destroyed; and consequently that all kinds of purification, even when used with the utmost care and diligence, are scarce sufficient to ensure safety. It would now be superfluous to enter farther into the subject of the plague being communicated by infected goods, did not our author quote a work of Dr. Pye of London, in which the latter from the very _Journal_ (which has been used as containing arguments in favour of contagion) makes inferences directly opposite. “The facts related in this journal (says Dr. Pye) seemed to me to make so clearly against the modern doctrine of contagion, that if this writer had not mentioned them as undeniable instances in his favour, I should not have thought there had been any persons here in England so dull of understanding, or so much blinded with prejudice, as to stand in need of having these facts put into a more obvious light: but, having this occasion, I shall consider them more largely than otherwise I would have done, and show that the porters, who died in the lazaretto at Marseilles, received no hurt or infection from the goods. “To leave no room for objection, I shall take notice, that a guard of quarantine died on board Chataud’s ship the 12th of June; but, as this officer was no ways concerned either in unloading or opening the goods, he could receive no hurt from them; and besides, this must have been fourteen or fifteen days after the goods had been carried out of the ship into the lazaretto. Further, six of their men are said to die at Leghorn; but the town of Leghorn was not infected from thence, which would have been more likely if there had been any infection in the case, than that Marseilles should be afterwards infected.