snakes. Nelson was for instant assault, but
the soldiers, once more on terra firma, grew
bold and pedantic, and insisted on a regular
siege, although the rains had set in, and fever
was fast mowing down the men. The untoward
place was taken only in time to turn it into a
hospital. For months our brave men bore the
horrors of this place, till the few survivors were
too weak even to bury the dead. Only three
hundred and eighty men survived out of one
thousand eight hundred. Eighty-seven of the
Hinchinbrooke's crew took to their beds in one
night, and of the whole crew only ten eventually
survived. The men of the transports all died,
and some of the ships, being left without sailors,
sank in the harbour. Nelson never recovered
the effects of this campaign, and returned to
England the wreck of his former self, to be
instantly sent out to the North Seas, as if the
Admiralty, as he remarked, had actually
resolved upon his death.

Edward Marcus Despard, the strenuous
captain whom we have seen hauling at boats with
Nelson over the burning white sand-banks of
the detestable St. Juan river, and storming the
fort at the head of the seamen of the Hinchinbrooke,
was the cadet of an old and respectable
family in Queen's County, and he had the warm
heart and strong passions of his race. He was
the youngest of six brothers, five of whom
were in the army or the navy. He was born
in 1750 or 1751, and in 1766 entered the army
as an ensign in the 5th Regiment. He afterwards
exchanged to the 79th, and rose by
degrees from lieutenant to quartermaster,
captain-lieutenant and captain. In all these posts
he served with credit and distinction, and was
noticed and rewarded by General Meadows and
the Duke of Northumberland. For the last
twenty years he had been detached from his
own corps, and entrusted with offices peculiarly
responsible, and requiring experience, courage,
and sagacity. He was chief engineer in Nelson's
expedition, and obtained great praise for his
valour and endurance from his commander,
Captain Polson. He was then employed to
construct public works at Jamaica, and executed the
task so well and so promptly that he received
the thanks of the council and assembly of the
island; he was appointed by the governor
commander-in-chief of the island of Rattan and its
dependencies; and on the Spanish Main and on
the Mosquito shore he took rank as lieutenant-
colonel and field engineer. A man evidently of
an organising and independent mind, he now
especially distinguished himself by leading the
inhabitants of Cape Gracias à Dios against the
Spaniards, and retaking from the Dons the
important settlement of Black River. For this
useful service Despard again received the
thanks of the governor, council, and assembly
of Jamaica, and, what was more, of King
George himself. In 1783 he was made colonel,
and in 1784 first commissioner for settling the
boundary lines of the South American territory
ceded to Britain by Spain. Profoundly
versed in Central American affairs, and able to
handle the Mosquito Indians, Nicaraguans, and
Spaniards with great tact, knowledge, and skill,
Colonel Despard had fair reason to expect
that he might some day become governor of
Jamaica itself. He was soon appointed our
Superintendent on the coast of Honduras, where
the mahogany trade required watching, and he
obtained many important commercial privileges
for us from the crown of Spain. Factions,
however, arose at Honduras, and Colonel Despard
was accused by the opposition of various
misdemeanours, probably rather the result of
imprudence or pride than of any real criminality.
Factions often send a colonial governor home in
disgrace, if they can get rid of him in no other
way.

The result, indeed, proved his entire
innocence, for, after two years' importunity and
miserable degradation in lobbies and ante-
chambers (enough alone to craze anybody—
how many madmen and suicides has it made?},
an official inquiry was instituted with the usual
sluggish formality and fuss, and the result was,
that Colonel Despard was at last told by the
ministers that there was no charge against him
worthy of further investigation, that his
Majesty had thought fit to abolish the office of
superintendent at Honduras, or that he would
have been reinstated in his post, but he
was assured, foi de ministre, that his great
services were not forgotten, and should in due
time meet their reward. The real fact,
probably, was, that the American department had
delayed the business till all about it was
forgotten; fresh men had arisen who had not
been cognisant of poor Despard's courage,
energy, and good sense, on whose minds was
left some office tradition of somebody having
done something wrong somewhere; and as it
might have been Despard or some one of his
officials, or some one else at Honduras whom nobody
knew, they determined to shelve the importunate
and troublesome colonel, whom no rebuff
would drive from the Whitehall door. The Greeks
always punished an unsuccessful general, and it
has been generally a rule with English ministers
to make a scapegoat of a blundering admiral, as
Voltaire sardonically said of Byng, "pour en-
courager les autres." It is even now observed
that the Admiralty never give another vessel to a
captain who has lost a man-of-war. Carelessness
or misfortune, drunkenness or excess of caution,
all one, he is thrown to the lions of public
opinion. It may be a wise practice, but it is
desperately cruel. We all know what Nelson
suffered from the Admiralty of his day; its
mean subterfuges, its idleness, its injustice.
When he returned from the West Indies, broken
in health, and was kept from mere malice
(because he had been exposing peculations against
government) five months at the Nore, and when
his vessel was turned into a slop and receiving
ship, he spoke of "the ungrateful
service," and said, as he stepped from the Boreas
on to the shore of the Medway, "It is
my firm and unalterable determination never
again to set my foot on board a king's ship."