 ships that would be necessary to
bring the Spaniards to a capitulation: But this last conjecture soon appeared
groundless, in as much as no ships of any kind whatever were afterwards employed
on that service. - A third sort swore, that no other cause could be assigned for
this undertaking, than that which induced Don Quixote to attack the windmill. A
fourth class (and that the most numerous, though without doubt, composed of the
sanguine and malicious) plainly taxed this commander with want of honesty as
well as sense; and alledged that he ought to have sacrificed private pique to
the interest of his country; that where the lives of so many brave fellow
citizens were concerned, he ought to have concurred with the general, without
being sollicited or even desired, towards their preservation and advantage; that
if his arguments could not dissuade him from a desperate enterprize, it was his
duty to render it as practicable as possible, without running extreme hazard;
that this could have been done, with a good prospect of success, by ordering
five or six large ships to batter the town while the land forces stormed the
castle, by this means, a considerable diversion would have been made in favour
of those troops, who in their march to the assault and in the retreat, suffered
much more from the town than from the castle; that the inhabitants seeing
themselves vigorously attacked on all hands, would have been divided, distracted
and confused, and in all probability, unable to resist the assailants. - But all
these suggestions surely proceed from ignorance and malevolence, or else the
admiral would not have found it such an easy matter, at his return to England,
to justify his conduct to a ministry at once so upright and discerning. - True
it is, that those who undertook to vindicate him on the spot, asserted, there
was not water enough for our great ships near the town; tho' this was a little
unfortunately urged, because there happened to be pilots in the fleet perfectly
well acquainted with the soundings of the harbour, who affirmed there was water
enough for five eighty gun ships to lye a-breast in, almost up at the very
walls. - The disappointments we suffered, occasioned an universal dejection,
which was not at all alleviated by the objects that daily and hourly entertained
our eyes, nor by the prospect of what must inevitably happen, if we remained
much longer in this place. - Such was the oeconomy in some ships, that, rather
than be at the trouble of interring the dead, their commanders ordered their men
to throw the bodies overboard, many without either ballast
