On June 4 some of her wealthy patients gave a dinner party, and invited Mary Seacole to be present. One speaker proposed her health, and after referring to her having saved their lives continued in the following strain: 'Well, gentlemen, I expect there are only two things we are vexed for. The first is that she ain't one of us--a citizen of the great United States; and the other thing is, gentlemen, that Providence made her a yellow woman. I calculate, gentlemen, that you're all as vexed as I am that she's not wholly white, but I do reckon on your rejoicing with me that she's so many shades removed from being entirely black; and I guess if we could bleach her by any means we would, and thus make her as acceptable in any company as she deserves to be. Gentlemen, I give you Aunty Seacole.' Mary Seacole's reply to this ill-mannered speech was as follows: 'Gentlemen, I return you my best thanks for your kindness in drinking my health. As for what I have done in Cruces, Providence evidently made me to be useful, and I can't help it. But I must say that I don't appreciate your friend's kind wishes with respect to my complexion. If it had been as dark as any nigger's, I should have been just as happy and as useful, and as much respected by those whose respect I value; and as to the offer of bleaching me, I should, even if it were practicable, decline it without any thanks. As to the society which the process might gain me admission into, all I can say is, that, judging from the specimens I have met here and elsewhere, I don't think that I shall lose much by being excluded from it. So, gentlemen, I drink to you, and the general reformation of American manners.' In 1853 Mary Seacole returned to Jamaica, and before she had been there many weeks yellow fever broke out. It was the worst outbreak that had occurred for many years, and soon Mary Seacole's boarding-house was full of patients, chiefly officers, their wives and children. In nursing her boarders, and procuring proper food for them, Mary Seacole had more work than most women would care to undertake; but when the military authorities asked her to organise a start of nurses to attend to the men in Up-Park Camp, Kingston, she set to work on this additional task, and, carrying it out with her customary thoroughness, rendered a great service to the army.