I was an undergraduate at Trinity, little thinking that I should live to proclaim the fact to a Trinity audience. Every one of you ought to read it if you have not already done so, to learn at first hand what was meant by naval and military service in the eighteenth century. Here was another warning to strengthen the first. But meanwhile the West Indies grew and grew in wealth, and were more and more coveted by all nations. Hence the great William Pitt himself was eager to appropriate as many islands as possible, setting thus a very evil example to his son. At the end of 1758 six battalions were sent out to capture Guadeloupe, which they duly did, being handled with great skill by General Barrington, before the hurricane season began. Three of the six battalions were left there as a garrison, and, before the year was out, about half of them had died. In 1762 Pitt's successor, acting upon his designs, sent eight thousand men to capture the remaining French islands; and, this being accomplished, not without heavy loss from sickness, the remnant of the force joined a detachment of troops under Lord Albemarle in the siege of Havana. Twelve thousand men were employed in this siege, which lasted two months, and was one of the most deadly in which British soldiers were ever engaged. Before its close one brigade of four battalions was reduced to twenty men fit for duty. Over five thousand men were buried in Cuba alone in four months, while hundreds more perished both there and in North America, whither they had been transported in the hope of saving their lives. Several French islands passed into our possession at the Peace of Paris, all of course demanding garrisons which required to be totally renewed every two years; but Guadeloupe, Martinique and St Lucia were left to the French; and it was in order to gain a safe harbour in St Lucia, commanding the French naval base at Martinique close by, that a descent was made upon it in 1778 by five thousand British troops from America. The operations were conducted in a masterly fashion both by sea and land; and the capture of the island atoned in some measure for that of sundry British islands by the French. But the virulence of yellow fever was everywhere terrible; and the usual mortality was heightened in 1780 by a hurricane of peculiar violence. In Barbados four thousand human beings, nine thousand cattle and horses, and smaller stock without number were destroyed in a few hours. Still, by laying the forest flat and thus destroying the harbour for mosquitoes, the hurricane abated the sickness in St Lucia.