troops," they wrote, "can only discourage them. In our opinion you have quite men enough for the attack of so paltry a fort. You should have built another battery, for your men would be all the healthier for more work. Knowing the climate, we advise you to pursue more vigorous measures in order to keep your men from sickness." The tone of the two sailors towards the soldier was rather that of a contemptuous nurse towards a timid child, but the last letter had the desired effect, for Wentworth ordered the fort to be stormed on the very same day. The English no sooner mounted the breach than the Spaniards fled almost without firing a shot, and the dreaded fort of Boca Chica fell into Wentworth's hands at the cost of two men wounded. Moreover, the Spaniards in the forts on the other side of the channel also partook in the panic and abandoned them, leaving the entrance to the harbour open to the British. The operations so far had cost one hundred and thirty men killed and wounded, but two hundred and fifty had perished from sickness, and over six hundred were in hospital. The rest of the work needed to be done quickly if it were to be done at all. [Sidenote: April 5/16.] [Sidenote: April.] It was, however, first necessary to re-embark all the troops in order to carry them to the head of the harbour for the attack on the city of Carthagena. This process occupied more than a week, and did not improve relations between army and navy. Vernon had already complained loudly, and probably with some justice, of the laziness of the soldiers: the blue-jackets had done all the hard work at the first landing of the regiments, and they were now called upon to do it again. At length, however, the transports got under way and proceeded towards the inner harbour, the entrance to which, like that of the outer port, lay through a narrow channel with a large fort, called the Castillo Grande, on one side, and a small redoubt on the other. The passage was more effectually blocked by a number of sunken ships which the Spaniards had scuttled after the forcing of Boca Chica. The fleet, however, quickly disposed of all these obstacles. The Spaniards abandoned Castillo Grande, and the naval officers, with their usual deftness, contrived to find a channel through the sunken ships. A few broadsides cleared the beach for the disembarkation, and on the 16th of April Wentworth landed. He had begged hard for five thousand men, but had been answered curtly, though not unjustly, by the naval commanders that, while they were ready to land them if required, they thought fifteen hundred men quite sufficient, since time above all things was precious.[148] So with fifteen hundred men Wentworth proceeded to the further task before him. There was now but one outwork between him and Carthagena, a fort standing on an eminence about seventy feet above the plain, and called Fort St. Lazar. The approach to it from the head of the harbour lay through a narrow defile, at the