Dews in the Night, they got Colds, so that
many of them fell sick) whereas had they been instantly employed to
have encamped and opened Ground in the Woods for that Purpose, they
would have been shaded by the Trees, freed from the burning Heat of the
Sand, and many of them preserved from the Enemy's Shot, that missed our
Battery.

[_E_] In the first Place it must be observed, that there never was
Application made what particular Ordnance, Stores, _&c._ to land, or
any Scheme formed what Sort of Cannon might be necessary, or what
Quantity of Stores wanting, but the whole was landed, and a
considerable Part lost by being washed off the Beach by the Sea, and
several Carriages broke to pieces by the Enemy's Shot, and the rest
left in Heaps in the utmost Confusion; notwithstanding there were near
five hundred Seamen appointed for this Purpose; but those Officers,
whose Business it was to have formed an Artillery Park (though God
knows they called this so) and disposed of the Stores in a regular
Manner and Order, were----

[_F_] Such was the Knowledge of the Sub-Engineers, that not one of them
knew where to chuse out a Spot of Ground for raising a Battery, neither
had they prepared Fascines, Pickets, or any Materials, till their
Principal arrived (and after he had pitched on a Place, he made a
Demand of thirty thousand Fascines of twelve Foot long, twenty thousand
of nine Foot long, and forty thousand Pickets, whereas one thousand
five hundred Fascines built the Battery) who, _Vauban_ like, would not
begin to work, till all his Materials were on the Spot; and then, with
five hundred Seamen, two or three hundred Blacks, and as many Soldiers
as the General could spare for Pioneers, he was ten Days erecting a
Battery; and when it was done, it was parallel to neither Face nor
Curtain of the Fortification, and the Breach was made in the angular
Point of the Bastion, neither was there any safe Communication with it,
for no Trench was ever cut, or proposed, only a Path through the Woods,
and that almost in a strait Line; so that every Shot enfiladed it, and
killed twenty times the Number of Men going to and from the Battery,
that were killed every where else during the Siege; nor would the
Engineer be prevailed on (any more than the General) to cut off the
Communication from the Town to _Boccachica_ (by which they might have
prevented the Enemy from receiving any Succours by Land, seen all their
Motions in the Harbour, and hinder