The alliances among the powers of Europe in the middle of the
seventeenth century and the unsatisfactory settlements of some of the
most harassing questions in dispute produced a state of unrest and
tension throughout the world which the clever pourparlers and the
fascinating fencing bouts of European diplomacy failed to relieve, and
of which Cuba was destined to feel the effects. In spite of her insular
isolation Great Britain was closely concerned with the intrigues that
were being spun at the courts of the continent and were bound sooner or
later to involve Europe in a new bloody conflict. She had on the one
hand allied herself with Austria, bribing even some of the South German
principalities to insure the election of Joseph II. to the throne of the
Holy Roman Empire, and on the other hand with Russia, which was then a
newcomer not yet vitally interested in the issues at stake. Both allies
failed to keep their pledge; Austria turned away to enter into a
confederacy with France, while Russia passed from one camp to the other.
The growing ascendancy of Prussia under Frederick II. had long been
watched with distrust by the immediate neighbors, but by this time even
those whose territories seemed safe from his acquisitive aggressiveness
were roused to the realization of the danger it foreboded.
When Saxony and some other German states, Austria, Hungary, Sweden,
Russia and France combined to check the Prussian's ambitious designs,
Great Britain, Hanover, Hesse-Cassel and Brunswick became the allies of
Frederick. Spain with remarkable firmness decided to keep out of the
general war which broke out in 1756 and, lasting until 1763, was to be
known in history as The Seven Years' War. Even when Pitt, who was the
ally of Frederick of Prussia, offered the conditional return of
Gibraltar and the abandonment of the British settlements on the Mosquito
Coast and in the Bay of Honduras, Fernando VI. resolutely refused to
participate.
By this wise policy of non-interference this king secured for Spain a
period of peace which brought with it a prosperity it had long lacked.
The country recovered from the losses occasioned by previous wars, and
when Carlos III. succeeded his father, he found fifteen millions of
dollars in the treasury. He, too, was determined to keep peace, but the
stubborn resistance of Great Britain to any equitable settlement of the
question in dispute between the two countries, and the continual
violation of international justice by her mariners were hard to bear and
sorely tried the patience of the people. Bancroft says in his history of
the United States (Vol. III, p. 264):
"The restitution of the merchant ships, which the English had seized
before the war, was justly demanded. They were afloat on the ocean,
under every guarantee of safety; they were the property of private
citizens, who knew nothing, and could know nothing, of the diplomatic
disputes of the two countries. The capture was unjustifiable by every
reason of equity and public law. 'The cannon,' said Pitt, 'has settled
the question in our favor; and, in the absence of a tribunal, this
decision is a sentence.'"
It is meet in this place to call attention to the literature called
forth by Britain's colonial ambitions. Albert Savine, a French writer,
during the Spanish-American war, wrote an interesting article in the
_Revue Brittanique_ of Paris (1898, Vol. III, pp. 167 etc.), entitled:
"Les Anglais dans l'ile de Cuba au dix-huitieme siecle," in which he
refers to a History of Jamaica by Hans Sloane, published in 1740 and
translated into French in 1751. This writer brought out the importance
of Cuba very clearly, saying that no vessel could go to the continent
without passing that island, that Havana was the general rendezvous of
the fleet and that for the British to be really lords of the seas
surrounding them, nothing was needed but Havana. Savine in discussing
Britain's designs upon Havana, continued:
"The reason for their attack upon Cuba was, as is seen, the commercial
and military importance of the island, which was at that epoch
considered a necessary stopping place, a rallying point for the vessels
going from Spain to America and from America to Spain. To be master of
Cuba, thought they, was to be master of the road which the Spanish
galleons followed. This rôle of port of supply and repairs for the
damages sustained on the sea had made of Havana since the middle of the
sixteenth century an important arsenal and dockyard, where there were
continually in process of construction enormous ships destined for
travel to Spain or South America. From 1747 to 1760 they fitted out
seven ships of line, a frigate, a brigantine, and a packet-boat. The
vessels which at the side of our fleet at Trafalgar fought those of
Nelson had almost all come from the yards of Havana, which used the
excellent timber of the island, commerce in which has somewhat
diminished in our century."
The notes and dispatches exchanged between France and Spain on the one,
and Britain on the other side, prove how the two were slowly forced into
an alliance against the latter. On the fifteenth of May, France
presented a memorial asking that England give no help to the king of
Prussia and simultaneously a paper was presented from Spain, demanding
indemnity for seizure of ships, the right to fish at Newfoundland and
the abandonment of the settlements in the Bay of Honduras. On the
twenty-ninth, England demanded Canada, the fisheries, granting to the
French a limited concession, unlikely to be of any use, the reduction of
Dunkirk, half of the neutral islands; Senegal and Goree, which was
equivalent to a monopoly of the slave trade; Minorca; freedom to give
help to the king of Prussia; and British supremacy in East India. On the
fifteenth of August, the French minister Choiseul concluded with Spain
what was called a family compact, rallying all the Bourbons to check the
arrogance of Britain. On the same day a special agreement was reached
between France and Spain, empowering the latter, unless peace were
concluded between France and England before the first of May, 1762, to
declare war against England.
Guiteras in his "Historia de la Isla de Cuba" has set forth the position
of Spain at this time and her relation to France, which led to the
famous alliance known as the Family Pact. He says justly, that the
general interests of the nation demanded from Carlos III. the
continuation of the strict neutrality which his brother had pursued in
this war; for by that neutrality the commerce and general welfare of
Spain had derived great benefits. But personal motives of resentment
against England and of esteem and gratitude for Louis XV. predominated
in his mind against the serious reasons of state and the advantages to
his subjects, and the voluminous correspondence carried on between him
and the king of France made him deeply share the humiliation of the
principal branch of his family under the triumph of British arms. These
sentiments and other motives finally gave birth to the treaty which was
concluded between the two sovereigns on the fifteenth of August, 1761,
and which was a defensive and offensive alliance of the two countries
with the object of creating between them firm and lasting bonds for the
mutual protection of their interests, and thus to secure on a solid
basis the internal prosperity of the two kingdoms and the predominance
of the house of Bourbon among the princes of Europe.
It was agreed to consider henceforth as a common enemy any government
that would declare war against either of the two kingdoms and
reciprocally to guarantee the dominions they possessed at the conclusion
of the war, in which France saw herself involved; to lend each other aid
at sea and on land, and not to listen to or enter into any settlement
with the enemies of both crowns unless so done with common accord. For
as much in peace as in war they had to consider the identified interests
of the two nations, compensate their losses and divide their respective
acquisitions and operate as though the two peoples were one, by granting
to the subjects of both kingdoms in their European dominions the
enjoyment of the same privileges as those of their native subjects; and,
finally, to admit to participation in this treaty only such countries as
were ruled by sovereigns of the House of Bourbon.
As Spain was by this treaty compelled to break with Great Britain, they
awaited only the arrival of the galleons from South America in order to
provide for the security of their commerce and territory, and that of
their distant possessions. Then would be the moment to make known the
consummation of this alliance and to begin hostilities against the
common enemy. But somehow Britain anticipated the designs of Spain, for
the French with their characteristic impatience had divulged the secret
in their communications to foreign courts, and a lively correspondence
ensued between the countries, soon to be arrayed against each other in
the war Carlos III. had so zealously wished to avoid. But there was no
doubt in the minds of the Spanish king and his cabinet, that the British
policy was one solely of conquest, that Britain recognized no other law
than the aggrandizement of her power on land and her universal despotism
on the ocean. Nor could it be doubted by any impartial onlooker that
Britain had long cast covetous eyes upon the Spanish possessions in
America, and had for a long time given Spain sufficient cause for
grievance. The audacity of her privateers and pirates in their attacks
upon the West Indies had not been forgotten; the colonies especially had
reason to remember the numerous and criminal outrages to which they had
been subjected at the hands of men openly or covertly breaking treaties
that had been made and accepted by the two nations for the mutual
protection of their merchantmen at sea. The leniency of Britain in
dealing with the most notorious pirate of all, the scoundrel Morgan,
whom she allowed to settle under the protection of her flag in Jamaica,
to rise to social prominence, to be appointed to public offices of
importance, and whom her king had finally distinguished by conferring
upon him knighthood, had always been felt as acts of defiance.
In the rapid exchange of notes during the period when the rupture
between the two powers was daily coming nearer the suavity of diplomatic
language was sometimes discarded for rather plain speech. When Britain
proposed some regulations of the privileges of the British to cut
logwood in Campeche, the king of Spain, through his minister, Wall,
replied in a dispatch:
"The evacuation of the logwood establishment is offered, if his Catholic
majesty will assure to the English the logwood! He who avows that he has
entered another man's house to seize his jewels says, 'I will go out of
your house, if you will first give me what I am come to seize!'"
This drastic comparison enraged Pitt and he decided upon even more
stringent measures to humiliate Spain and crush her power in America.
But in the meantime the party in parliament that had steadily opposed
him succeeded in its propaganda against him, and he was forced to
retire. However, the feelings had run too high, the hostility on both
sides had assumed such proportions that war was inevitable. The British
were more than ever bent upon pursuing their acquisitions in America,
regardless of France and Spain; and the Spanish were unanimous in their
hatred of the aggressor.
The year 1762 opened for the powers concerned in this conflict with the
declaration of war upon Spain by King George III. on the fourth of
January. This was promptly followed on the sixteenth of the same month
by a declaration of war upon Britain by King Carlos III. Thus was the
die cast, and both governments at once set about to make extensive
preparations for military and naval action. Fortune seemed to favor the
British; for George Rodney, the gifted naval officer, who was to
distinguish himself during the war between Britain and her colonies by
his daring and successful operations against the French and Spanish
fleets in the West Indian waters, was at that time in the neighborhood
of what was to be the scene of action. He had with a fleet of sixteen
ships of line and thirteen frigates, carrying an army of twelve thousand
men under Monckton, arrived at Martinique and laid siege to the colony
which France cherished most among her island possessions in America.
After five weeks, it was forced to surrender. A number of other islands
followed, until all the outer Caribbeans from St. Domingo towards the
continent of South America were in the possession of the British.
Naturally the attention of the British government was immediately fixed
upon Havana. This being the most important military post of New Spain,
its conquest promised to close the passage of the ocean to the Spanish
ships carrying away from America its inexhaustible treasures for the
sole enrichment of the crown of Spain. It meant also opening that and
other ports of the Spanish West Indies to British navigation, and lastly
it was to be only the beginning of operations which ultimately were to
include the conquest of other possessions of Spain in that part of the
world. The honor of conceiving the project has been conceded to Admiral
Knowles, who had submitted his plan to the Duke of Cumberland; but
although the latter recommended it to the ministry, the plan of the
invasion, which had been simultaneously submitted by Lord Anson, chief
of the board of Admiralty, and which was almost identical with that of
Knowles, was the one finally adopted. In order to divert the attention
of the enemy from the true object of the expedition, a rumor was
circulated that the forces were destined for Santo Domingo, which seemed
quite plausible, this island being nearer to Martinique than to Cuba,
and one half of it belonging to France, the other to Spain. _The London
Gazette_ of January ninth corroborated this statement by the
announcement that the English army was bound for the Antilles.
George III. entrusted the Duke of Cumberland with the task of selecting
the chiefs who were to be placed at the head of the enterprise, and his
choice fell upon the following: Lieutenant-General Keppel, Earl of
Albemarle, for general-in-chief of the land forces, and Admiral Sir
George Pococke for the command of the squadron. The latter and a
division of four thousand men gathered in Portsmouth and orders were
given to General Monckton to hold the forces which had gone to the
conquest of Martinique and Guadeloupe ready for the arrival of Admiral
Pococke. The authorities in Jamaica and the British colonies of North
America were ordered to prepare two divisions, the first of two thousand
men, the latter of four thousand. The British command staked everything
upon a surprise attack. Fear that information of the rupture between the
two countries might have reached Cuba, caused no little anxiety to Lord
Albemarle and Admiral Pococke. The expedition narrowly escaped an
encounter with the squadron of M. de Blenac, who had left Brest in aid
of Martinique with seven vessels and four frigates and a sufficient
force to have saved that colony, had he come in time. Unfortunately he
arrived in sight of Martinique only after the surrender of Fort Royal,
and on hearing that the island was in possession of the British, he
altered his course and turned towards Cape France, leaving the passage
free for Admiral Pococke and his fleet.
Upon his arrival in Martinique, Lord Albemarle took command of all the
forces assembled on the island and found that his army consisted of
twelve thousand men. He divided them into five brigades and formed
besides them two bodies, one of four companies of light infantry brought
from England, and one battalion of grenadiers under the command of
Colonel Guy Carleton, and placed two other battalions of grenadiers
under the command of William Howe. He also ordered the purchase of four
thousand negroes in Martinique and other islands, who were incorporated
into a company with six thousand negroes of Jamaica. When all these
preparations had been made, the forces that were to take part in the
siege of Havana were under orders of the following commanders:
Lord Albemarle, Commander-in-chief.
Lieutenant-General George August Eliot, second chief.
Field Marshals: John Lafanfille and the Hon. William Keppel.
Brigadiers: William Haviland, Francis Grant, John Reid, Andrew Lord
Rollo and Hunt Walsh.
Adjutant-General: Hon. Col. William Howe; second;--Lieutenant-Colonel
Dudley Ackland.
Quartermaster General: Col. Guy Carleton; sub-delegate:--Major Nevinson
Poole.
Secretary of the general-in-chief: Lieutenant-Colonel John Hale.
Engineer-chief: Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick MacKellar.
Chief of the Military Health Board and of the medical corps: Sir Clifton
Wintringham; sub-delegate: Richard Hunck and a staff of three
physicians, four surgeons, four druggists and forty-four attendants.
A month passed in concluding the details of this well-elaborated plan.
Finally on the sixth of May Admiral Pococke started from Martinique in
the direction of the Paso de la Mano, where he was joined on the eighth
by the division of Captain Hervey, who was blocking the squadron of
Admiral de Blenac at Cape France; on the seventeenth they arrived at
Cape Nicolas and on the twenty-third they met the Jamaica fleet under
command of Sir James Douglas. The British naval forces, including these
two divisions and the one that later arrived from North America,
consisted of fifty-three warships of various kinds with a crew of ten
thousand eight hundred men, and a great number of transports, among them
two hundred vessels carrying provisions, hospital supplies, ammunition,
etc. When the manner of conducting the expedition was at last decided
upon, the fleet ordered to take part in the siege of Havana was
composed of the following vessels:
The Admiral ship _Namur_ of fifty cannons; _Cambridge_ of eighty;
_Valiant_; _Culloden_; _Temerare_; _Dragon_; _Centaur_; and _Dublin_ of
seventy-four; _Marlborough_ and _Temple_ of seventy; _Oxford_ and
_Devonshire_ of sixty-six; _Belleisle_; _Edgar_; _Alcide_; _Hampton
Court_; and _Sterling Castle_ of sixty-four; _Pembroke_; _Rippon_;
_Nottingham_; _Defense_; and _Intrepid_ of sixty; _Centurion_;
_Depford_; _Sutherland_; and _Hampshire_ of fifty; the frigates
_Penzance_, _Dover_ and _Enterprise_ of forty; _Richmond_ and _Alarm_ of
thirty-two; _Echo_, _Lizard_, _Trent_, _Cerberus_ and _Boreas_ of
twenty-eight; _Mercury_ of twenty-four; _Rose_, _Portmahon_, _Forvey_
and _Glasgow_ of twenty; _Bonetta_, _Cygnet_ and _Merle_ of sixteen; the
schooner _Porcupine_ of sixteen, _Barbadoes_, _Viper_, _Port Royal_,
_Lurcher_ and _Ferret_ of fourteen, and the bomb-vessels _Thunder_,
_Grenade_ and _Basilisk_, each of eight cannons.
Of such formidable dimensions were, according to Guiteras, the
preparations made by Britain for the attack upon Havana. Little is heard
of corresponding steps taken by her opponents. France was too exhausted
to indulge in great expenditures of money or men. Spain was curiously
unconcerned. The possibility of an attack upon Havana was discussed in
Madrid, but the Spanish minister Grimaldi could not be made to believe
that it might be successful. Cuba, too, little suspected what was in
store for her. The new governor appointed to take the place of Cagigal,
when the latter was promoted to the vice-regency of Mexico, was the
Field Marshal D. Juan Prado y Portocasso. Before the consummation of the
Family Pact, in March, 1670, King Carlos III. had told Prado of the
menacing attitude of Britain and had warned him of the possibility of a
rupture. He counted upon him to reorganize the island from a military
point of view. Nevertheless Prado did not immediately after his
appointment sail for Cuba, but lingered six more months in Spain, and,
when he arrived on the island, wasted another month in a visit to his
friend Madriaga, the governor of Santiago. He did not arrive in Havana
until January, 1761. Valdes gives July as the month of his inauguration
which seems improbable.