in the article of cleanliness, which had rendered the ship extremely loathsome between decks. Notwithstanding our desire of freeing the sick from their hateful situation, and their own extreme impatience to get on shore, we had not hands enough to prepare the tents for their reception before the 16th; but on that and the two following days we sent them all on shore, amounting to a hundred and sixty-seven persons, besides twelve or fourteen who died in the boats, on their being exposed to the fresh air. The greatest part of our sick were so infirm that we were obliged to carry them out of the ship in their hammocks, and to convey them afterwards in the same manner from the water-side to their tents, over a stony beach. This was a work of considerable fatigue to the few who were healthy, and therefore the commodore, according to his accustomed humanity, not only assisted herein with his own labour, but obliged his officers, without distinction, to give their helping hand. The extreme weakness of our sick may in some measure be collected from the numbers who died after they had got on shore; for it had generally been found that the land, and the refreshments it produces, very soon recover most stages of the sea-scurvy; and we flattered ourselves, that those who had not perished on this first exposure to the open air, but had lived to be placed in their tents, would have been speedily restored to {111} their health and vigour. Yet, to our great mortification, it was near twenty days after their landing before the mortality was tolerably ceased; and for the first ten or twelve days we buried rarely less than six each day, and many of those who survived recovered by very slow and insensible degrees. Indeed, those who were well enough at their first getting on shore to creep out of their tents, and crawl about, were soon relieved, and recovered their health and strength in a very short time; but in the rest, the disease seemed to have acquired a degree of inveteracy which was altogether without example.