The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson | Page 9

have held out a little longer, diseases would have rid them of
their invaders. Even the Indians sunk under it, the victims of unusual
exertion, and of their own excesses. The place surrendered on the 24th.
But victory procured to the conquerors none of that relief which had
been expected; the castle was worse than a prison; and it contained
nothing which could contribute to the recovery of the sick, or the
preservation of those who were yet unaffected. The huts which served
for hospitals were surrounded with filth, and with the putrefying hides
of slaughtered cattle--almost sufficient of themselves to have
engendered pestilence; and when at last orders were given to erect a
convenient hospital, the contagion had become so general that there
were none who could work at it; for besides the few who were able to
perform garrison duty, there were not orderly men enough to assist the
sick. Added to these evils, there was the want of all needful remedies;
for though the expedition had been amply provided with hospital stores,
river craft enough had not been procured for transporting the requisite
baggage; and when much was to be left behind, provision for sickness
was that which of all things men in health would be most ready to leave.
Now, when these medicines were required, the river was swollen, and
so turbulent that its upward navigation was almost impracticable. At
length even the task of burying the dead was more than the living could
perform, and the bodies were tossed into the stream, or left for beasts of
prey, and for the gallinazos--those dreadful carrion birds, which do not
always wait for death before they begin their work. Five months the
English persisted in what may be called this war against nature; they
then left a few men, who seemed proof against the climate, to retain the
castle till the Spaniards should choose to retake it and make them
prisoners. The rest abandoned their baleful conquest. Eighteen hundred
men were sent to different posts upon this wretched expedition: not

more than three hundred and eighty ever returned. The
HINCHINBROOK's complement consisted of two hundred men;
eighty-seven took to their beds in one night, and of the whole crew not
more than ten survived.
The transports' men all died, and some of the ships, having none left to
take care of them, sunk in the harbour: but transport ships were not
wanted, for the troops which they had brought were no more: they had
fallen, not by the hand of an enemy, but by the deadly influence of the
climate.
Nelson himself was saved by a timely removal. In a few days after the
commencement of the siege he was seized with the prevailing
dysentery; meantime Captain Glover (son of the author of LEONIDAS)
died, and Nelson was appointed to succeed him in the Janus, of
forty-four guns; Collingwood being then made post into the
HINCHINBROOK. He returned to the harbour the day before San Juan
surrendered, and immediately sailed for Jamaica in the sloop which
brought the news of his appointment. He was, however, so greatly
reduced by the disorder, that when they reached Port Royal he was
carried ashore in his cot; and finding himself, after a partial amendment,
unable to retain the command of his new ship, he was compelled to ask
leave to return to England, as the only means of recovery. Captain
(afterwards Admiral) Cornwallis took him home in the LION; and to
his fare and kindness Nelson believed himself indebted for his life. He
went immediately to Bath, in a miserable state; so helpless that he was
carried to and from his bed; and the act of moving him produced the
most violent pain. In three months he recovered, and immediately
hastened to London, and applied for employment. After an interval of
about four months he was appointed to the ALBEMARLE, of
twenty-eight guns, a French merchantman which had been purchased
from the captors for the king's service.
His health was not yet thoroughly re-established; and while he was
employed in getting his ship ready, he again became so ill as hardly to
be able to keep out of bed. Yet in this state, still suffering from the fatal
effect of a West Indian climate, as if it might almost be supposed, he

said, to try his constitution, he was sent to the North Seas, and kept
there the whole winter. The asperity with which he mentioned this so
many years afterwards evinces how deeply he resented a mode of
conduct equally cruel to the individual and detrimental to the service. It
was during the armed neutrality; and when they anchored off Elsinore,
the Danish Admiral sent on board, desiring to be informed what ships
had arrived, and to have their force written