A second attempt with a vessel was more successful and the Spaniards were driven from their fort. When the Earl's men entered the town they found only women and old men. The men had retired to another fort and refused to yield; so two batteries were brought up and "began to speak very loud." During the siege the Earl had to punish a good soldier of his "for over-violent spoiling a gentlewoman of her jewels." The man was hanged in the market-place in the presence of many Spaniards. A sailor too, who had defaced a church, was condemned to die. Twice he was taken to the gallows, and twice he was removed in obedience to the clamours for his pardon. In a few days the Spaniards demanded a parley and surrendered, carrying their arms. But the climate of the island began to tell on the health of the English. Books had their glued backs melted by the heat, candied fruits lost their crust, and English comfits grew liquid. In July more than 200 died, and twice as many were sick of a flux and hot ague, with the limbs cold and weak. So the Earl made haste to store the hides, ginger, and sugar, also the town's guns and ammunition. He put on board, too, specimens of the sensitive plant, of which the chaplain said: "It hath a property confounding my understanding, for if you lay a finger upon the leaves of it, the leaves will contract and wither and disdainfully withdraw themselves, as if they would slip themselves rather than be touched." The Earl soon sailed for the Azores, hoping to catch the Mexican fleet; but he found that the homeward-bound carracks had already passed and the Mexican fleet was not expected, so in disappointment they sailed home. Seven hundred out of the thousand men who had landed at Puerto Rico had died, and the Spaniards had, knowing this, refused to ransom the city. So this grand expedition became a very serious loss to the Earl, but it was the cause of a greater loss to Spain, by preventing the carracks from going to or returning from the Indies. This was the Earl of Cumberland's last venture. Fuller eulogises him as "a person wholly composed of true honour and valour." But when we reflect that prodigal expenditure at Court, display at the tilting-field, and losses in horse-racing were amongst the incentives to these rash exploits, we must place him a little lower than old Fuller does. However, the Earl compares to advantage with our modern spendthrifts, most of whom will make no effort to retrieve their ruined fortunes, and expect their kind relations to support them in idleness. The Earl of Cumberland played a man's part, and was not above serving his country as well as his personal interests. There was something heroic about him even in his actions at Court.