From that time nothing is recorded of Rock Fort till 1753, when £300 was voted for its defence (£7000 being voted for Mosquito Point, afterwards called Fort Augusta); and thence onwards it is frequently reported on by the various committees appointed from time to time to report to the Assembly on the state of the fortifications and barracks of the island; and in 1755 £5000 was voted to be expended on Rock Fort. The following account of it is given by Long: [Illustration: FORT NUGENT IN 1908 ] It consists of two bastions, mounting twenty-one guns (twenty-four pounders), and furnished with a small powder-magazine, and other habiliments of war necessary for its defence. Upon the face of the hill is a little battery of six guns, with traversed lines that lead up to it. Outside the walls is a wet ditch, sunk lower than the surface of the water in the harbour; so that it may be occasionally filled. The fort is provided also with a drawbridge towards the Eastern road; casemates for lodging the men; and a house for the officers. It is too small to admit a garrison of more than seventy men: nevertheless, governor Kn[o]l[e]s was so confident of its strength, that he maintained that it was capable of standing a siege against ten thousand. It defends the access towards the town from the Eastward, and would undoubtedly prove a great security against an attack from that quarter; for the only way leading to it is narrow, and confined a considerable length in a straight direction, exposed to the whole fire of the fort, without a possibility of annoying it: nor could trenches be formed, to carry on a regular approach, as the road is all the way a shallow sand close by the water’s edge. A guard of soldiers is always kept here; but the fort is said to be very unhealthy to the men and their officers. The cause of this has by some been imputed to their drinking from a brackish stream which runs near it. Others ascribe it to the extreme heat reverberated down upon them from the hill, which rises like a wall above the fort. And some have thought it proceeded from a lagoon, which lies near the mouth of Mammee River, about three miles to the Eastward. To corroborate the latter opinion, is alleged the instance, mentioned by Lind, of Whydaw-castle, on the coast of Africa; which has been rendered more unhealthy than the Negroe-town in its neighbourhood by a flight of circumstance unattended to at first. It is built on a small spot of ground, which the sea breezes cannot reach without passing over a little, inconsiderable brook of water, which produces some aquatic plants always covered with a putrid slime. It is certain, from constant experience, that places adjacent to a foul shore, or stagnant waters, near the coast in the West Indies, are invariably unhealthful. But, whatever be the cause, it deserves a minute enquiry of gentlemen