ospital and sick-quarters, thirty-seven men from the Salisbury, with
three officers and ninety-eight marines of Colonel Lowther's regiment;
and these were all that were ever granted to make up the forementioned
deficiency.

But the commodore's mortification did not end here. It has been
already observed, that it was at first intended that Colonel Bland's
regiment, and three independent companies of an hundred men each,
should embark as land-forces on board the squadron. But this
disposition was now changed; and all the land-forces that were to
be allowed were five hundred invalids, to be collected from the
out-pensioners of Chelsea College. As these consisted of soldiers,
who, from their age, wounds, and other circumstances, were incapable
of serving in marching regiments, Mr Anson was much chagrined at
having such a decrepid detachment allotted to him; for he was fully
persuaded that the greatest part of them would perish long before they
could arrive at the scene of action, since the delays he had already
experienced necessarily confined his passage round Cape Horn to the
most rigorous season of the year. Sir Charles Wager joined in opinion
with the commodore, that invalids were by no means proper for this
service, and strenuously solicited to have them, exchanged. But he was
told, that persons who were considered better judges of soldiers than
he or Mr Anson, thought them the properest men that could be employed
on this occasion; and, upon this determination, they were ordered on
board the squadron on the 5th of August. But, instead of five hundred,
there came no more on board than two hundred and fifty-nine; for all
those who had limbs and strength to walk out of Portsmouth deserted,
leaving only those behind who were literally invalids, most of them
being sixty years of age, and some upwards of seventy. Indeed, it
is difficult to conceive a more moving scene than the embarkation of
these unhappy veterans: they were themselves extremely averse from
the service in which they were engaged, and fully apprized of all the
disasters they were afterwards exposed to, the apprehensions of
which were strongly marked by the concern which appeared in their
countenances, which was mixed with no small degree of indignation to
be thus hurried from their repose into a fatiguing employ, to which
neither the strength of their bodies, nor the vigour of their minds,
were any way proportioned; and in which, without seeing the face of an