might have maintained themselves, with the reinforcement which
followed them from Jamaica on the 10th of April, till a road for
carriages might have been made from Blue Fields Harbour to the
lake, and the season would have permitted farther reinforcement,
for the completion of a glorious enterprise; as the natives of the
country were ready to revolt, and only waited for a prospect of
success. But here they were shut up in the castle, as soon as they
were in possession of it. The troops and Indians were attacked with
fluxes, and intermittents, and in want of almost every necessary:
for the river was become so swoln and rapid by the rains, that the
harbour where the provisions and stores were was tedious, and
almost impracticable. Here the troops, deserted by those Indians
who had not already perished, languished in extreme misery, and
gradually mouldered away; till there was not sufficient strength
alive to attend the sick, nor even to bury the dead.

"Thus reduced, in the month of September, they were obliged to
abandon their flattering conquest, and return to the harbour:
leaving a few men behind, who were the most likely to live, to keep
possession of the castle, if possible, till farther orders should
be received from Jamaica.

"The Spaniards re-took the castle, as soon as the season permitted;
and, with it, those who had not strength enough to make their
escape.

"The crews of the vessels and transports that convoyed and carried
the troops, suffered considerably by diseases which the season
produced, while lying on the coast, and a thousand seamen lost
their lives.

"Of about eighteen hundred people who were sent to different posts,
at different embarkations, to connect and form the various
dependencies of this expedition, few of the Europeans retained
their health above sixteen days, and not more than three hundred
and eighty ever returned; and those, chiefly, in a miserable
condition. It was otherwise with the negroes who were employed on
this occasion. Few of them were ill; and the remainder returned to
Jamaica in as good health as they went from it.

"The survivors of the party, after they left San Juan Castle,
embarked for Blue Fields, an English settlement about sixty miles
to the north of San Juan River, where most of them