There were persons who thought that the packet boats might well be employed to do something more than carry to and fro a mere handful of letters. Among those who held this opinion was Colonel Stanwix. He contended that the Lisbon packets should be required to carry not only the mails, but recruits for the English forces in Portugal. By transport the fixed charge for each recruit was £4. This expense would be saved to the public, and the regiments would receive additions to their strength not fitfully, but at regular intervals. Subject to certain conditions, the postmasters-general resolved to give the plan a trial. The conditions were that not more than fifty recruits should go in one boat, and that, instead of passing free, as Colonel Stanwix had proposed, they should be charged £1 apiece--that is, 10s. for victualling, and 10s. for freight. The experiment was attended with deplorable results. It was midwinter. The recruits had been huddled together in Pendennis Castle, under a strong guard, to prevent desertion. Half-naked and only half-fed they were led or driven to the boat, and hardly were they on board before the distemper broke out among them. Many fell victims to it; many others, on arrival at Lisbon, were carried to the hospital, and even the strongest among them were barely able to stagger ashore. The return voyage was hardly less disastrous. The crew now took the disease, and as they lay dying and dead upon the deck, a vessel of French build was to be seen bearing down upon them. Resistance in the circumstances was out of the question, and nothing remained but to save the guns. These, ten in number, were with difficulty thrown overboard, and no sooner was the task accomplished than the vessel, which had by this time come within speaking distance, proved to be Her Majesty's ship _Assurance_. The liberty allowed to the Royal Navy to employ for its own purposes prizes taken at sea did not extend to the packet service. The Post Office was forbidden, under severe penalties, to use foreign bottoms. Often had convenience and economy to yield to the stern dictates of the law. Now it is a French shallop, admirably adapted for a packet boat, which has to be discarded simply because it is French; and now an express to Lisbon is on the point of being delayed because the regular packets are on the wrong side, and the only boat to be hired in Falmouth is not English built.