This remark is fully borne out by the statement of a highly distinguished officer;[118] and is moreover corroborated by the fact, that about this time, the particular attention of the Commander-in-Chief was drawn to the subject, without, however, accomplishing what the interests of the service greatly needed. It is said, that when the Duke of York was preparing his expedition for Holland, he demanded efficient assistance from the royal engineers and royal military artificers, which, for some reason, the Ordnance authorities reluctantly met with an inadequate provision. Annoyed by the limited number tendered, his Royal Highness determined to establish a corps competent to discharge the duties usually devolving upon the royal engineers, “which should be absolutely at the disposal of the Horse Guards; and as his Royal Highness held office in times when the thoughts of statesmen were bent rather to render the means of the country’s defence complete, and to aid other nations in opposing the aggressions of an arrogant and unscrupulous power, than to effect savings in the public expenditure, he found no difficulty in consummating his wishes, and hence arose the royal staff corps.”[119] ----- Footnote 118: Sir John Jones, in his ‘Sieges,’ vol. ii., note 38, p. 389, 2nd edit. Footnote 119: Gleig’s ‘Military History,’ xxxvii., p. 287. ----- 1800. Mortality in the West Indies—Blockade of Malta—Capture of a transport on passage from Nova Scotia—Movements and services of detachments in Turkey; attacked with fever—Anecdote of private Thomas Taylor at Constantinople—Cruise of expedition to Cadiz—Attack on the city abandoned—Subsequent movements of the expedition; Malta; and re-embarkation for Egypt—Statistics of companies at Gibraltar. From the diminished state of the company in the West Indies, and the impracticability of filling up the constantly-recurring vacancies by drafts from England, authority was given to the Commanding Engineer in the Leeward Islands, to obtain on the spot, men for the company properly qualified and climatized, either by enlistment or transfer from other corps. This led to an immediate incorporation, in April, of one sergeant, twenty privates, and two drummers, from the 43rd and other regiments; and though the plan was attended with considerable success, the still greater mortality from fever always kept the company greatly below its establishment. In addition to the repeated allusion made to the military artificers in the West Indies, the following statistics of mortality, as far as the same can now be ascertained, affording a tolerably correct idea of the unhealthiness of the climate, and the sufferings to which the men must have been subjected, may here not be misplaced.