SOUTHERN AFRICA. 1S3 
of deaths in the several regiments that, for seven ycnrs, have 
been stationed at the Cape of Good Hope. Such dry details 
furnish very httle of the useful and less of the agreeable. 
They might, indeed, serve to shew, on a comparison with 
other returns sent in from different foreign stations, how very 
trifling was the mortality of troops in this settlement. It will 
be sufficient, however, for my purpose to observe, that Lord 
Macartney, in order to save a vast and an unnecessary ex- 
pence to the public, found it expedient to break up the 
hospital staff, which, in fact, was become perfectly useless, 
there being at that time no sick whatsoever in tiie general 
hospital, and so few as scarcely worth the noticing in the 
regimental hospitals ; and the surgeons of the regiments ac- 
knowledged that those few under their care were the victims 
of intemperance and irregularity. At this time the strength 
of the garrison consisted of more than five thousand men. 
Shortly after the capture, it is true, a considerable sickness 
prevailed among the British troops, and great numbers died, 
a circumstance that was noticed, and at the same time fully 
explained, by General Sir James Craig in his letter to Mr. 
Dundas, about three months after the cession of the colony. 
He observes that the soldiers of the Dutch East India Com- 
pany were obliged to furnish their own bedding and blankets, 
as well as the necessary garrison and camp furniture ; so that, 
when the Dutch entered into the capitulation, not a single 
article of garrison furniture could be claimed ; and as the 
shops, at that time, furnished no such materials, the men were 
obliged to sleep on the bare flag-stones in the great barrack^. 
