Empires at War

by Jr. , William M. Fowler

  On February 3 Fort Royal surrendered. The town's capitulation did not immediately end resistance. Forces under the French governor-general Le Vassor de la Touche still controlled most of Martinique, including the towns of St. Pierre on the west side and LaTrinite on the north. The British took La Trinite by amphibious assault on February 9. Recognizing the hopelessness of his situation, de la Touche surrendered the entire island on February 13.

  Over the next few weeks Rodney swept up the other French islands in the region, including Grenada, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent. The admiral was in his full glory. In his dispatches home he proclaimed triumph after triumph, and in his private account books he quietly tallied the booty that was to make him a rich man.30

  In late January 1762, in the midst of his conquest of Martinique, Rodney received important news: England and Spain were at war. Like England, Spain had a relatively new king, Charles III, who, like George III, brought a new perspective to diplomacy and politics. Although both the French and Spanish thrones were held by members of the Bourbon family, the late king Ferdinand VI had tried his best to keep Spain out of the war. His younger brother and successor, however, was less able, and on August 15, 1761, he secretly signed the Family Compact, pledging to act in concert with France against England. Most important, Charles III agreed that if peace was not secured between the two warring powers by May 1, 1762, Spain would declare war against England.31

  Thanks to his ring of spies, Pitt was well aware of the discussions between France and Spain. Firm in his determination to see the war concluded in a manner entirely favorable to England, he had for some time been fending off peace overtures from France. Why make peace when there were more victories in the offing and more territory to be gained? Rumors of Spain's secret negotiations with France stiffened him in his determination to push on to victory. His goals remained steadfast: take the French colonies in North America and the West Indies; hold to the treaty with Prussia; guarantee a settlement in India suitable to the interests of the East India Company; control the Atlantic fisheries; and dominate trade to Africa. Newcastle shared Pitt's war aims, but he was unwilling to pay the price for their purchase. The old minister was ready to make peace. He, and the majority of the cabinet, were weary of the war and tired of its expense.

  Despite peace overtures wafting over from France, Pitt was convinced that the French were only playing for time while they consolidated their position in Germany. He was equally certain that Spain's diplomatic dance was a charade behind which it was arming for war. Through the summer and into the early fall of 1761, Pitt urged Newcastle and others to support a preemptive strike against the Spanish. Ships of the Royal Navy, he told them, stood ready off Cape Finisterre to intercept the returning treasure fleet from the Americas. Panama and Havana, he argued, could be taken with the forces already present in the West Indies, and Manila, far away and weakly defended, was ripe for the picking. Pitt's penny-wise colleagues shuddered at the expense of widening the war, and they resented the minister's haughty demands.

  As Newcastle wavered, the king organized opposition against Pitt. In this he had the help of Lord Bute, a Scottish peer and a close friend of his mother and late father. Thanks to the king, Bute, over the vehement objections of Pitt, had entered the cabinet in March 1761. At an October 2, 1761, cabinet meeting, called to discuss the Spanish crisis, Anson and Ligonier gave expert testimony.32 Both spoke against war with Spain. The fleet, according to the first lord, was not ready, while the general argued that the addition of Spanish troops in Germany would tilt the scales against England's allies. Pitt knew he was beaten. He told the cabinet, "I will be responsible for nothing that I do not direct." Three days later he surrendered the seals of his office.33

  Pitt's departure left Newcastle as the nominal head of government, but the real power rested with Bute and the young king. Ironically, once confronted with the reality of the Franco-Spanish alliance, the new government found itself on the path to war. Only a few weeks after Pitt stepped aside, the British ambassador in Madrid, Lord Bristol, asked Richard Wall, the Spanish foreign minister, point-blank if he might see the treaty reported to have been signed between Spain and France. Wall lambasted the ambassador for his impertinence. Four days later Charles III sent orders to seize all British ships in Spanish ports. Within a month both sides declared war. Spain entered the fray too late and with too little. But war with that nation offered lucrative opportunities for Britain. Having scooped up nearly all the French colonies and merchant marine, the Royal Navy was running short on prey. Spain's ill-timed entry provided fresh and inviting targets.

  * * *

  As soon as he learned that war with Spain was official, Rodney wasted no time taking advantage of his opportunities. He ordered the island garrisons and nearby squadrons to stand ready while he sent fast frigates to warn ships on station to keep a watch for the Spanish. Rodney's actions were aggressive and prudent. He anticipated that the Admiralty would send him new orders to seize Spanish possessions in the Caribbean.

  On March 5 Rodney received worrisome news. According to dispatches dated December 23, the entire Brest squadron under the comte de Blenac had given the slip to the British blockading force. The Admiralty assumed that they were bound for Martinique. Rodney called in his scattered squadrons and ordered cruisers to find the enemy. Blenac had his own plan. When he arrived near the islands and discovered that Martinique had fallen to the English, rather than undertake a risky counterattack he slipped away and headed north for Cap François, located on the northwest coast of the island of Santo Domingo only a few days' sail from Havana. Blenac's move caused Rodney to fear for the safety of his main base at Jamaica. If the French fleet combined with the Spanish at Havana, they would pose a serious threat to England's position in the Caribbean. Without faltering, Rodney gathered his ships and sailed toward Jamaica, leaving behind a small force to cover his rear. He ordered the commander at Jamaica, Captain Arthur Forrest, to join him with all available force in the Windward Passage (between Cuba and Santo Domingo), where they could stand and block any enemy descent on the island.

  En route to his rendezvous with Forrest, Rodney put into St. Christopher's. Captain John Elphinstone of the frigate Richmond was there to meet him with new orders from the Admiralty. Their lordships instructed him "to desist from any enterprise he might have in view."34

  Rodney was, after all, a relatively junior flag officer, and it was never likely that the Admiralty would entrust a major campaign in the West Indies to him when a small squadron of senior officers would have lined up for the post, anxious for the glory and spoils that might come by plucking Spain's Caribbean treasures.

  Havana, "the Pearl of the Antilles," was the juiciest prize. Located on the northwest side of Cuba, it was one of the largest European cities in the New World. Its deep and spacious harbor was the finest and best defended in the Caribbean. At the harbor's narrow entrance the Spanish had built two imposing forts: Morro Castle on the east side and Punta on the west. Their walls stood watch over a narrow passage leading from the sea to the inner harbor. Havana was the key to the Greater Antilles. Pitt had advocated its seizure when in office, and now that the nation was at war with Spain, not even those who had dumped him from power could argue against his logic. With the advice of Bute, Anson, and Ligonier, the king appointed Admiral George Pocock, Clive's naval partner in India, to overall command. Pocock's second was Commodore Augustus Keppel. The land forces were under Keppel's older brother George, earl of Albemarle. The earl had once been colonel of Wolfe's regiment when the hero of Quebec was serving in Scotland. Wolfe had detested him, describing him to his mother as a "showy" officer who "professes fairly, and means nothing."35

  Anson and Ligonier moved quickly. Their "secret plan" was to rely mainly on forces already in the field. The Admiralty could spare only six ships of the line fom home waters.

  On March 5, Pocock and Albemarle came aboard the flagship Namur at Portsmouth. That same day Namur departed, in company with several men-of-war
, sixty-four transports, and three East India ships.36Namur made its landfall at Barbados on April 20. Pocock sent a fast boat ahead to get the latest intelligence. When he learned that the main British force was waiting at Martinique, he hurried to the island. Rodney did not welcome Pocock in person. "It gives me real pain," he wrote to his successor, "that my ill state of health prevents my paying my respects to you in person."37 Monckton transferred his regiments to Albemarle's control. All told, Pocock had a fleet of thirteen ships of the line, while Albemarle's land force totaled nearly sixteen thousand men. Five thousand of Albemarle's men, however, had to be left in the islands for security. To compensate for the loss of manpower, the admiral purchased one thousand slaves for a labor force. On May 6 the expedition sailed for Cape St. Nicholas on the Windward Passage, where on the twenty-third they were joined by nine more ships of the line that had been dogging the enemy off Cap François. Once again the Admiralty had demonstrated a remarkable ability to assemble land and sea forces.

  Pocock faced a difficult decision. Looking at the charts, he realized that he had two ways to approach Havana. He could sail his fleet through the relatively safe waters off Cuba's southern coast and then pass northwesterly through the Yucatan Channel, coming onto a northeasterly course toward Havana. Although this offered safe water, it was a lengthy passage, and for his lubberly transports it posed a special problem, since once they exited the channel and came onto an easterly heading they would have to beat against both wind and current. It could take them weeks to cover the distance to Havana. Pocock's other choice was to bear north through the Windward Passage and then set a westerly course along Cuba's north shore. This route was shorter and blessed with a fair current and a favoring breeze. The curse was that the fleet would have to negotiate the Old Bahama Channel, which included some of the most treacherous waters in the Caribbean. Shallow banks, shoals, and serpentine reefs dotted the wreck-strewn waters between the Bahama Islands and Cuba's northern coast. Despite the horrendous obstacles, the admiral chose tactical advantage over navigational risk. He ordered his captains to lay a course along the northern shore.38

  Before carrying out his mission against Havana, Pocock still had to deal with Blenac. The French fleet had dashed into Cap François and was riding at anchor waiting for the Spanish to join them. Luckily for Pocock, the Spanish admiral at Havana, Don Gutierre de Hevia, was under strict orders to keep his fleet intact at Havana, and not to undertake anything that might leave the city unprotected. To ensure that Blenac would not hit him from the rear, Pocock dispatched eight ships of the line to guard the port. But Blenac was not about to aid an ally that he believed had abandoned him.39

  Pocock's advance on Havana was similar to Saunders's earlier movements up the St. Lawrence. Both admirals faced the challenge of bringing a large naval force through dangerous waters. To simplify control, Pocock divided his fleet into seven smaller divisions. At four in the afternoon of May 27 Namur signaled the divisions to get under way. Decks were cleared, sailors sprang aloft to let go topsails, and dozens of small boats were put over the sides and trolled along on painters, ready to be sent ahead to sound and buoy the uncertain channels. Although the wind was fair, Pocock moved slowly. For safety the fleet anchored at night. A few days out, Pocock grew anxious that his snail-like advance might cost him the element of surprise. To close faster, he decided to risk night sailing. He ordered the small boats to go ahead, where they anchored on either side of the channel and displayed lanterns to guide the men-of-war and transports. By then Cuba was clearly visible on the larboard side.

  After ten anxious days of sailing, his fleet hove to about fifteen miles east of their objective. They had achieved near complete surprise over the enemy. As ships let go their anchors and swung into the wind, sailors on the troop transports struggled to release the lines that held the landing barges on deck. Pocock dispatched a fast frigate with Colonels William Howe and Guy Carleton aboard to reconnoiter possible landing sites. The admiral wanted to secure the beach as soon as possible, but squalls flying in from the north churned the sea and made it too dangerous to launch small boats.

  On the morning of June 7 Pocock sent several warships to Chorera, just west of the harbor entrance, hoping to draw defenders in that direction. Wliile his ships feigned an attack, the main body went ashore four miles east of the city at Coxima, where Howe and Carleton had chosen the landing site. Spearheaded by the grenadiers, an advance corps secured the beach, and within a few hours several thousand British troops were safely ashore, ready to advance inland.40

  Although the British had caught the Spanish unprepared, they still had to face the formidable defenses of the city. Most impressive was Morro Castle. Rocky ground at the base of its walls made it impossible to dig trenches for a siege, and the thin soil provided almost no earth to mound up for hasty defenses. In the harbor itself Hevia had a dozen ships of the line. Not one of them raised anchor to sortie. True to his instructions, the admiral remained snug in the harbor. With fewer than five thousand regular troops available to defend the city, the Spanish commanders thought it a better course to keep the nine thousand sailors and marines on the ships close by for land defense.

  Once Albemarle's troops were ashore, the speed and daring that had thus far characterized the operation evaporated under the hot Cuban sun. Boldness gave way to convention. Instead of using his mobility to strike quickly and hard at the key to Havana—Morro Castle—Albemarle opted for a conventional siege.

  Grenadiers and light infantry moved in a wide southwesterly arc around the city, easily sweeping aside the few Spanish defenders they encountered. Having secured the countryside, Albemarle gradually tightened the noose. On June 11 Carleton's light infantry secured the heights of Cabana, giving British artillery range on the enemy fortifications. By the end of June siege guns and mortars were in place, ready to begin the bombardment. To Pocock's dismay, the fleet was of little use in the assault on the fortress.41 The walls loomed so high over the water that the ship's gunners could not elevate their cannon to a sufficient angle to strike them. Albe­marle's tactical success came at a high cost. The general had yet to fight a single major battle, but he was already suffering heavy losses from tropical heat and disease.

  Engineers and slaves labored and died as they struggled to cut roads through heavy undergrowth and across sharp volcanic rock. The average daily temperature spiked above eighty degrees Fahrenheit, rising to near one hundred degrees at midday, with little rain.42 Night brought no relief. Fresh water was the fuel upon which the besiegers depended, but there was none to be had except from the Chorera River several miles to the west. On June 15 Pocock ordered Colonel Howe to land at the river mouth and secure the supply. Soon a constant convoy of vessels plied back and forth, carrying thousands of barrels of water to parched sailors and troops.43 Nonetheless, the situation remained difficult. James Miller, a soldier at the siege, remembered that "The fatigues on shore were excessive, the bad water brought on disorders, which were mortal, you would see the men's tongues, hanging out like a mad dog's, a dollar was frequently given for a quart of water."44

  On July 1 British gunners opened their barrage against the Spanish. It was a fierce bombardment. By the artilleryman's manual, a per-gun rate of 80 to 90 rounds a day was considered expert; these guns fired at the pace of 149 shot in sixteen hours—more than twice the standard rate. The weather was oppressive, and the gun barrels were blistering hot. Since there was so little earth available to mound up to protect their positions, the artillerymen fashioned fascines from brush and palm leaves, piling the bundles close to their guns to shield themselves from enemy fire. The fierce sun dried the bundles to kindling. On the second day of bombardment a spark flew from a muzzle, igniting the fascines. In minutes a firestorm swept the batteries, men ran to escape exploding powder, and "the labor of six hundred men for seventeen days" was destroyed.45

  By mid-July more than eight thousand soldiers and sailors were down, stricken with fever, dysentery, and scurvy. Like the Canadia
n winter, the Cuban summer threatened to destroy British plans. Albemarle's regiments were on the verge of collapse when they were saved by the arrival of fifteen hundred slaves from Jamaica. The Jamaican legislature had, according to a contemporary, behaved with "infinite honor" by offering to supply the labor of these men at only one-third of the going rate, that is, five pence per day rather than the usual fifteen. Strangely enough, there had even been a proposal to arm some of them, but fear of a slave revolt trumped the desperate need for soldiers; in the end, only one company of slaves was given arms to join in the siege. The rest labored and many died in the Cuban sun.46

  Encouraged by the arrival of reinforcements Albemarle pressed the siege. For the Spanish the situation was critical. Under the weight of the English attack, the walls of the fortress were crumbling and the men inside were collapsing. On July 27 fresh troops arrived from New York. Three clays later, after a party of engineers had blown up part of the wall, the British stormed through the breech, capturing the fort and mortally wounding the commander, Don Luis Vicente de Velasco.

  Although they had lost the Morro, the Spanish still held Havana—but not for long. On August 2 more reinforcements arrived from North America. On the ninth Albemarle summoned the dying Velasco to surrender, warning him that if he should force the British to storm the city he and his men might not expect any quarter. In no condition to respond, Velasco turned command over to his subordinate Juan de Prado, who politely refused the British demand. Early in the morning of the eleventh the British batteries opened a tremendous fusillade. By midafternoon Prado was ready to parley. At 3 p.m. "flags of truce were hung all around the town."47