The discipline and internal œconomy of the French ships of war are greatly inferior to those of the British. Their decks are never washed, and there is a great defect in every point of cleanliness and order. The free course of the air is obstructed by lumber of every kind, and by bulkheads, which are not taken down even in the time of battle; and the gratings are covered night and day with tarpaulins, even in a hot climate. There are not even scuppers opened on the lower deck as outlets to the water and filth, which necessarily accumulate there, and for which the only vent is a pipe contrived on purpose, passing from that deck along the ship’s side into the hold, which becomes thereby a common sink, inconceivably putrid and offensive. And in addition to the ordinary causes of corruption, there was one peculiar to the occasion; for the blood, the mangled limbs, and even whole bodies of men, were cast into the orlop, or hold, and lay there putrifying for some time. The common sailors among the French have a superstitious aversion to the throwing of bodies overboard immediately after they are killed, the friends of the deceased wishing to reserve their remains, in order to perform a religious ceremony over them when the hurry and danger of the day shall be over. When, therefore, the ballast, or other contents of the holds of these ships, came to be stirred, and the putrid effluvia thereby let loose, there was then a visible increase of sickness. For the first three weeks after the capture, the stench proceeding from the numbers of wounded men contributed also to taint the air. The Ville de Paris was much more sickly than the other prizes, not only from her being larger, and thereby containing a greater mass of foul air, but by receiving the surviving part of the crew of the Santa Monica, one of our frigates, which had been cast away on the Virgin Islands, and whose men were so reduced by hardship and intemperance, that most of them were taken ill as soon as they came to breathe the unwholesome air of the French prize. To whatever cause it was owing, the fever was much more violent here than in the other prizes, and it generally carried men off on the third or fourth day; and what is remarkable, the officers were affected by it in a greater proportion than the common men. One lieutenant, and every warrant officer, except the boatswain, died of it. This was a proof that the sickliness was owing to the bad air, and not to the intemperance and irregularity so usual on board of prizes, which only the common men give into; and the probable cause of the officers being most affected is, that they were accustomed in common to a purer air, by living in the most clean and airy parts of the ship.