172 HISTORY OF THE [BOOK. n. 



providence and wantonness of profusion, as to occasion 

 a scarcity of fresh provisions in a place which hau 

 been represented as abounding in the highest degree. 

 The chief commanders apprehending this event, and 

 rinding that the bread and flour which arrived from 

 England were oftentimes spoiled by the length of the 

 voyage and the heat of the climate, had urged the 

 soldiers, with great earnestness, to cultivate the soil, 

 and raised, by their own industry, Indian corn, pulse, 

 and cassavi, sufficient for their maintenance. They 

 endeavoured to make them sensible that supplies 

 from England must necessarily be casual and uncer- 

 tain; and, persuasion failing, they would have com- 

 pelled them by force to plant the ground; but the sub- 

 altern officers concurred with the private men, abso^ 

 lutely refusing to contribute in the smallest degree to 

 their own preservation by the means recommended* 

 They were possessed of a passionate longing to re- 

 turn to England, and fondly imagined, that the conti- 

 nual great expense of maintaining so large a body of 

 troops at so great a distance, would induce the pro- 

 tector to relinquish his conquest. They even rooted 

 up the provisions which had been planted and left by 

 the Spaniards. " Our soldiers (writes Sedgewicke) 

 have destroyed all sorts of provisions and cattle. No- 

 thing but ruin attends them wheresoever they go. 

 Dig, or plant, they neither will nor can, but are de- 

 termined rather to starve than work/' A scarcity ap- 

 proaching to a famine, was at length the consequence 

 of such misconduct, and it was accompanied with its 

 usual attendants, disease and contagion. Perhaps 

 there are but few descriptions in history wherein a 



