It is further stated, that in the end of August, Ostend having surrendered, the garrison, consisting of five battalions British, was conducted to Mons, where they continued about three weeks: that these men had been so healthy that, when they marched out, upon the capitulation, they left only ten sick; but that the same corps having been put into damp barracks at Mons, while the town was surrounded with an inundation, fever immediately appeared, and prevailed to such an extent, that in this short space of time 250 were seized with the disease.[32] Of the campaign in 1748, it is stated that the troops had scarcely been a month in the cantonments, when the returns of the sick amounted to 2000: that afterwards the number became much greater: that those who were near the marshes suffered by far the most, both in the number and the violence of the symptoms; that the Greys, cantoned at Vucht (a village within a league of Bois-le-duc, surrounded with meadows, either then under water, or but lately drained) were the most sickly; that for the first fortnight they had no sick, but, after continuing five weeks in that situation, they returned about 150; after two months, 260, which was about half the regiment; and at the end of the campaign, they had in all but 30 men who had never been ill: that a regiment at Nieuland, where the meadows had been floated all Winter, and were but just drained, returned sometimes above half their number: that the Scotch Fuzileers at Dinther, though lying at a greater distance from the inundations, yet being quartered in a low and moist village, had above 300 ill at one time, while a regiment of dragoons, cantoned only half a league south-west of Vucht, were in a good measure exempted from the distress of their neighbours, such was the advantage even of that distance from the marshes, of the wind blowing mostly from the dry grounds, and of a situation upon an open heath, somewhat higher than the rest.