The fleet which effected the first relief of Gibraltar, under the command of Lord Rodney, consisting of twenty ships of the line, arrived there in the third week of January, 1780, after a passage of three weeks and a few days from England, in which they had an action with the Spanish fleet, and obtained a victory over them, on the 16th of that month. The whole fleet, except one ship, sailed from Gibraltar on the 13th of February, and while it lay there, the diseases sent to the hospital, and their respective mortality, were as follows[23]:
| DISEASES. | Admitted. | Died. | Proportion. ONE IN |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fevers | 622 | 65 | 9½ |
| Fluxes | 17 | 0 | 0 |
| Scurvy | 13 | 1 | 13 |
| Ulcers | 20 | 3 | 7 |
| Wounds | 29 | 9 | 3 |
| Other Complaints | 12 | 3 | 4 |
| Total | 713 | 79 | 9 |
[24]This comprehends not only the deaths in the time the fleet remained there, but all that happened afterwards. The mortality, from wounds and ulcers, is greater than might be expected in so fine a climate, and at the coolest season of the year; but as the place was then besieged, the sick and wounded could not be supplied with those refreshments that were necessary to the recovery of the men, and wounds and ulcers are complaints very apt to be affected by the quality of the diet.
The following is an Account of the Men admitted at the Hospital at Barbadoes in the Campaign of 1780, that is, from the 16th of March till the end of June:
| DISEASES. | Admitted. | Died. | Proportion. ONE IN |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fevers | 277 | 43 | 6½ |
| Fluxes | 70 | 22 | 4 |
| Scurvy | 199 | 47 | 4 |
| Ulcers | 92 | 16 | 5½ |
| Wounds | 167 | 61 | 2½ |
| Other Complaints | 129 | 23 | 5½ |
| Total | 943 | 212 | 4½ |
The fevers were chiefly from the five line-of-battle ships that came immediately from Europe in March. Upon their arrival they sent on shore one hundred and ninety-three men ill of fevers, only one with the flux, fifteen with the scurvy, and five with ulcers.
When these ships returned to Barbadoes in May, along with the rest of the fleet, the greater part of the sick were then also on board of them. By that time the flux and scurvy had broke out. The former prevailed chiefly in the Terrible; the latter in the Intrepid. That part of the fleet which we found on the station sent on shore a very small proportion of all the classes of complaints, except wounds.
Of the wounds, nineteen were amputations, of which there died nine, mostly of the locked jaw. There were forty-six scorched by gunpowder, of whom there died fourteen; so that, besides those who were killed outright, and those who died on board in consequence of accidents of this kind, before they could be sent to an hospital, about one fourth of all the wounds, and the same proportion of all the deaths from wounds, at the hospital, was owing to this cause. This circumstance ought to induce commanders to take every precaution to prevent such accidents. In the subsequent part of the war they were less frequent, in consequence of that greater caution, and more accurate method of working great guns, which were acquired by practice and experience[25].
In the account of the mortality, I have included only such as died before the 1st of January, 1781; for if any were carried off after that time, it was most probably by some incidental complaint. There were sixty-five of them at that time remaining, and they were chiefly men disabled by lameness waiting for a passage to England as invalids.
Out of the twenty-three that were killed by the fall of the house in the hurricane on the 10th of October, eight were of the number above accounted for; but these are not included in any of the classes of deaths.