There is an essay on the causes of the pestilence, by an anonymous author, published at Edinburgh in 1759, in which this disease is said to be entirely the offspring of idleness, and he illustrates this by its being more apt to arise in besieged towns than any other situation; and he alledges that a false alarm of the plague will actually produce it by throwing people idle, as was the case, he affirms, when the plague was last at Messina. There are always numbers who have been pressed into the service, to whom a sea life is new, and who are therefore prone to indolence, low spirits, and self-neglect. Men of this description are by far the most apt to fall into the scurvy; and next to the quality of the food, there is nothing contributes more to promote the scurvy than such a disposition. It is indeed both a cause and a symptom of this disease, and therefore idleness and _skulking_ should be rigidly discouraged, unless the complaint is so far advanced as to render it cruel and even impossible to force men to take exercise. The Conqueror, of 74 guns, one of our squadron in the last year of the war, was an instance of a ship in which only the prime seamen were attacked with the scurvy, and this is to be accounted for upon the same principle, for it proceeded from their having been exempted from the duty of pumping, in which the inferior classes of men were constantly employed, owing to the leaky state of the ship. As low spirits and indolence have such an unfavourable effect upon health, it would be wise, as well as benevolent, to promote whatever produces jollity, contentment, and good humour, so far as is consistent with sobriety and regularity. There are certain rough sports which are now almost in disuse; and whoever would revive and encourage them, would perform a useful office to the service. A sea life frequently demands violent temporary exertions, from the uncertainty of the weather, and other incidents; so that men are more exposed to extreme fatigue and sudden calls of duty in this than in any other situation of life. Nothing tends more to shorten life than excessive bodily labour and watching; and it is for this reason that seamen in general are short lived, and that their countenance and general appearance make them appear older than they really are by several years. This is remarkably the case when a seaman comes to be upwards of forty and it has been mentioned before, that a person not acquainted with this circumstance will make a mistake of ten years in guessing at the age of a seaman from his looks.