JB/539/218/001

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9

St Lucie is so strong (What do they call it? Morne Fortunèe?) that it might bid defiance to an army of £20,000
men: that it has cisterns and I dont know how many other thing,
bomb-proof; and that part of it is undermined. But then he adds some
other circumstances that are plain lies: viz: that there were 2500 regulars
in it & as many sailors. It appears plainly that the attack
upon St Lucie was designed principally if not wholly as a feint to
draw our attention from Tobago. At this latter place it looks as
if we had made but a scurvy figure: the island was surrender'd
without so much as firing a gun; though we had one post Dillon
says extremely strong, and a defence of 24 hours might as they had
reason to expect, have given time for the fleet to come to their relief.
On the other hand their fleet appears from the first paper to have
cut as scurvy a figure in the engagement with Adm. Hood: it
talks of a "fatalitè", and then again of another fatalitè, and so
I believe to the tune of 3 fatalities that prevented them from gaining
the advantages they might have done: and yet this was written
by an apologist of de Grasse's.

I believe I shall pack this off to night: tomorrow Elliot
leaves this place: a modest civil good kind of man: sensible enough,
but without those pretensions which one would expect to find in a man whose
station in his country is so commanding & political influence so great. He

Identifier: | JB/539/218/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 539.
Date_1	1781-08-26	Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	539	Main Headings
Folio number	218	Info in main headings field
Image	001	Titles
Category	Correspondence	Number of Pages
Recto/Verso		Page Numbering
Penner	Jeremy Bentham	Watermarks
Marginals		Paper Producer
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number
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