"Yes; and we find they fell sick in multitudes, that night; and, 'in two days more, were reduced from 6,645 to 3,200 effective;' Vernon, from the sea, looking disdainfully on:--and it became evident that the big Project had gone to water; and that nothing would remain but to return straightway to Jamaica, in bankrupt condition. Which accordingly was set about. And ten days hence (April 26th)) the final party of them did get on board,--punctual to take 'three tents,' their last rag of Siege-furniture, along with them; 'lest Don Blas have trophies,' thinks poor Wentworth. And sailed away, with their sad Siege finished in such fashion. Strenuous Siege; which, had the War-Sciences been foolishness, and the Laws of Nature and the rigors of Arithmetic and Geometry been stretchable entities, might have succeeded better!" [Smollett's Account, _Miscellaneous Works_ (Edinburgh, 1806), iv. 445-469, is that of a highly intelligent Eye-witness, credible and intelligible in every particular.] "Evening of April 26th:"--I perceive it was in the very hours while Belleisle arrived in Friedrich's Camp at Mollwitz; eve of that Siege of Brieg, which we saw performing itself with punctual regard to said Laws and rigors, and issuing in so different a manner! Nothing that my Constitutional Historian has said equals in pungent enormity the matter-of-fact Picture, left by Tobias Smollett, of the sick and wounded, in the interim which follow&d that attempt on Fort Lazar and the Laws of Nature:-- "As for the sick and wounded", says Tobias, "they were, next day, sent on board of the transports and vessels called hospital-ships; where they languished in want of every necessary comfort and accommodation. They were destitute of surgeons, nurses, cooks and proper provision; they were pent up between decks in small vessels, where they had not room to sit upright; they wallowed in filth; myriads of maggots were hatched in the putrefaction of their sores, which had no other dressing than that of being washed by themselves with their own allowance of brandy; and nothing was heard but groans, lamentations and the language of despair, invoking death to deliver them from their miseries. What served to encourage this despondence, was the prospect of those poor wretches who had strength and opportunity to look around them; for there they beheld the naked bodies of their fellow-soldiers and comrades floating up and down the harbor, affording prey to the carrion-crows and sharks, which tore them in pieces without interruption, and contributing by their stench to the mortality that prevailed.