that the big
Project had gone to water; and that nothing would remain but to return
straightway to Jamaica, in bankrupt condition. Which accordingly was set
about. And ten days hence (April 26th)) the final party of them did
get on board,--punctual to take 'three tents,' their last rag of
Siege-furniture, along with them; 'lest Don Blas have trophies,' thinks
poor Wentworth. And sailed away, with their sad Siege finished in such
fashion. Strenuous Siege; which, had the War-Sciences been foolishness,
and the Laws of Nature and the rigors of Arithmetic and Geometry been
stretchable entities, might have succeeded better!" [Smollett's Account,
_Miscellaneous Works_ (Edinburgh, 1806), iv. 445-469, is that of a
highly intelligent Eye-witness, credible and intelligible in every
particular.]

"Evening of April 26th:"--I perceive it was in the very hours while
Belleisle arrived in Friedrich's Camp at Mollwitz; eve of that Siege of
Brieg, which we saw performing itself with punctual regard to said
Laws and rigors, and issuing in so different a manner! Nothing that
my Constitutional Historian has said equals in pungent enormity the
matter-of-fact Picture, left by Tobias Smollett, of the sick and
wounded, in the interim which follow&d that attempt on Fort Lazar and
the Laws of Nature:--

"As for the sick and wounded", says Tobias, "they were, next day, sent
on board of the transports and vessels called hospital-ships; where they
languished in want of every necessary comfort and accommodation. They
were destitute of surgeons, nurses, cooks and proper provision; they
were pent up between decks in small vessels, where they had not room to
sit upright; they wallowed in filth; myriads of maggots were hatched in
the putrefaction of their sores, which had no other dressing than that
of being washed by themselves with their own allowance of brandy; and
nothing was heard but groans, lamentations and the language of despair,
invoking death to deliver them from their miseries. What served to
encourage this despondence, was the prospect of those poor wretches who
had strength and opportunity to look around them; for there they beheld
the naked bodies of their fellow-soldiers and comrades floating up and
down the harbor, affording prey to the carrion-crows and sharks, which
tore them in pieces without interruption, and contributing by their
stench to the mortality that prevailed.

"This picture cannot fail to be shocking to the humane reade