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ing of our troops at a place called La Quinta; and a resolution was taken in a council of war, to attack the place with musquetry only, which was put in execution next day, but the enemy giving them such a warm reception, that the greatest part of the detachment took up their everlasting residence on the spot; so that eight thousand able men landed on the beach near Bocca Chica, were now reduced to fifteen hundred for service. The sick and wounded were squeezed into hospital ships, and their wounds and stumps being neglected contracted filth and putrefaction, and millions of inaggots were hatched amid the corruption of their sores; and rather than be at the trouble of interring the dead, the commanders ordered their men to throw the bodies overboard. many without ballast or winding sheet; so that numbers of human carcases floated in the harbour, until they were devoured by sharks and carrion-crows, which afforded no agreeable sign to those who survived: at the same time the wet season began, with thunder and lightning, in such continual flashing, that one might have seen to read by the illumination! The change (illegible text) the atmosphere conspired, with the stench that surrounded us, the heat of the climate, our own constitutions much impoverished by bad provisions, and our despair, to introduce the bilious fever, which raged with such violence, that three fourths of them died in a deplorable manner.
