A Short History of the Royal Navy, 1217 to 1688

by David Hannay

Two months were spent at Barbadoes, which might have incomparably better been employed in assailing the Spaniards before they were ready. At last, on the 31st of March, the expedition got under way. It proceeded by Antigua, Montserrat, Nevis, and St. Kitts to the south-eastern end of Hispaniola, and appeared before the town of San Domingo on the 13th of April. San Domingo stands on the western side of a little river called the Ozama. It is in the middle of a large bay, some twenty-eight miles broad and some ten miles deep. The coast is low, rocky, and beaten by a formidable surf. Looked at from the sea, the spray thrown up from the waves was like the smoke of cannon fringing the beach. Close to the town on the west side was a fort. To the west of the fort, and at a distance of some five miles from the town, another river, called by the Spaniards Jaina, and by us Hina, falls into the sea. When there is a dead calm, or a land breeze from the north, it is possible to land here, but at other times the surf is too dangerous for boats. These conditions made it necessary to disembark the soldiers to westward and leeward of the town at some distance. In the West Indies the trade wind, or true breeze, always blows from the east. Beyond Cape Nisao, the western extremity of San Domingo Bay, there are a few landing-places in the surf-beaten coast. At one of these, perhaps Catalina Bay, Venables disembarked with the bulk of the expedition on the 14th of April. In the meantime Penn remained, with the greater part of the fleet and two regiments of soldiers, in front of San Domingo. The object of retaining these two corps was to land them at the mouth of the Jaina, to co-operate with Venables when he had got so far. They had with them stores and scaling ladders for the purpose of attacking the town.

The story of what came of these imposing preparations is happily all but unparalleled in English history. Venables began his march on the day after landing, in circumstances of the most lamentable kind, if he is to be believed.

"Our men, the last fortnight at sea, had bad bread, and little of it or other victuals, notwithstanding General Penn's order, so that they were very weak at landing; and some, instead of three days' provision at landing, had but one, with which they marched five days, and therefore fell to eat limes, oranges, lemons, &c., which put them into fluxes and fevers. Of the former, I had my share for near a fortnight, with cruel gripings that I could scarce stand."

In this dismal condition they struggled through the narrow paths which traversed the dense tropical forest, without meeting more than a very trifling resistance from the Spaniards. By the 16th they had reached the Jaina. Here they remained until the 24th, engaged in what can only be called pottering. General Venables came back to the flagship, partly for the purpose of taking "a vomit," and partly in search of his wife, who went with him when he returned to his post. Every kind of difficulty as to provisions, scaling ladders, and powder united to hamper the attack on the Spaniards. It does not appear that the men were absolutely destitute of courage. On the 18th a portion of them were roughly handled in an ambush, but they rallied well, and beat the enemy back. The hardships of the service, of which the most intolerable was thirst, did something to depress their spirits, but what worked upon them most was unquestionably the discovery that they were being led without energy or intelligence. First, the army advanced from the Jaina to Fort Jerónimo. A vaunting attack, made without sufficient means, was followed by a retreat to the former position. When at last, on the 24th, the real attack was to be delivered, the troops, badly armed, badly disciplined, and mostly of bad quality to start with, were thoroughly ready for a panic.

On Wednesday the 25th the final attack on the Fort Jerónimo was to be made. The troops advanced and met at first with no opposition. They established themselves on the eastern side of the fort, where no guns were mounted. An advance guard, called in the language of the time a "Forlorn," was to open the attack, supported by a party of "Reformadoes"—that is to say, officers belonging to corps which had been suppressed or broken up and incorporated with others. Behind them were the other regiments of the expedition. When the Forlorn was close on the fort, and the attack just about to begin, a small body of Spanish lancers, put by all the witnesses at some forty or fifty men, fell suddenly upon the English. Their charge was directed against the Forlorn, which fell suddenly and shamefully into disorder, and fled headlong back on the Reformadoes. The Reformadoes, whose part it was to have set an example to the army, were seized with a no less ignoble spasm of terror. The Forlorn and the Reformadoes, mingled in confusion, retreated upon the supporting regiments, which they infected with their own cowardice. The whole mass gave way in flight, and retreated in all the hubbub of an utter rout. Some of the officers did indeed behave with the gallantry to be expected of English gentlemen. Haynes, the major-general, the same officer who had co-operated with Blake in the taking of the Channel Islands for the Parliament, broke out of the mob of runaways, and, armed only with a small walking-sword, threw himself in the path of a handful of Spanish lancers who were pressing the pursuit. He was accompanied by an ensign named Blagg, who showed the colours in the vain hope of rallying some support. But the example of these brave men was lost on the terror-stricken rabble. Haynes was borne to the ground and slain; Blagg tore his colours from the staff, and, wrapping them round his body, fell down, and there died, pierced with many wounds. The completeness of their success appears to have taken the Spaniards entirely by surprise. They were a mere handful, and, although they are said to have killed between three and four hundred, they were not supported, and were easily repulsed when some of the English were induced to make a stand. The corps to which belongs the honour of saving the expedition from extermination was the sailors' regiment commanded by Admiral Goodson. These men were no doubt veterans of the Dutch war, who were hardened to perils. They let the cowards pass, and then closed up to cover their retreat. So soon as they were resolutely faced, the forty or fifty Spanish lancers, who had hitherto "had the execution" of some thousands of Englishmen, fell back.

There were those among the English who believed that all was not lost, and that a second attempt might be made with a fair prospect of success. But the bulk of officers and men were completely cowed. They could think of nothing except of hurrying back with the utmost possible speed to the landing-place, and taking refuge in the ships. The officers would not trust themselves with such men, and indeed the spirit of the whole force was completely broken. While retreating during the night, they were terrified at the noise made by the land-crabs in the bush, and opened a wild fire right and left.

While the army was making this deplorable exhibition of itself, the ships were parading to and fro in front of San Domingo, engaging at odd moments in a languid artillery fire with the forts. Penn declared that he could have easily destroyed Fort Jerónimo, and have swept the sea-wall of the town. He excused his failure to act, by saying that his colleagues would not agree. Venables, in particular, was opposed to the destruction of Jerónimo, on the ground that it would be useful as a hospital. It is not obvious, however, that Penn need have been deterred by this from attacking the town. His conduct was certainly wanting in enterprise, and the difference between him and his colleague seems to be this, that whereas Venables did wrong, Penn did too little.

Having lost hundreds of men by the sword, and a still larger number by the tropical diseases which were now raging, the unlucky expedition cast about for some means of escaping the reproach of utter failure. Some of the more poor-spirited among them were ready to return to Barbadoes, and from thence to England. The majority, either because they possessed more courage, or because, however much they feared the enemy and the climate, they dreaded Oliver Cromwell still more, were resolved to make a last effort before returning empty-handed. A compensation which was easily to be secured lay ready to their hands. The island of Jamaica is almost due west of the west end of the island of San Domingo, at a distance of about a hundred miles. Gage, the author of the Survey of the West Indies, was with Venables, and he, with the English planters from Barbadoes and St. Kitts, could easily inform the generals that the island was almost uninhabited, and would be an easy prize. On the 4th of May, Penn and Venables left the bay of San Domingo, and on the 10th appeared before the Spanish town on the south side of Jamaica. Here, fortunately for them, perhaps, there was no opposition. The population, in fact, was very small, hardly able to beat off a considerable raid of pirates. The town was occupied after a mere show of resistance on the 9th, 10th, and 12th of May. The Spanish governor made his submission at once. His countrymen, with greater spirit, deserted the town and took refuge in the hills.

Having now at last done something, the English leaders hastened to deprive themselves personally of all credit by deserting their command and running back to England. The early history of Jamaica is a very painful one, and need not be told here. Perhaps the moral of it all is best given by a witness who wrote after the Restoration of Charles II. He reported that when the Spaniards saw how fast the English died, they were surprised, but that, when they learned how much they drank, they were surprised that any of them lived. The military and naval leaders squabbled, and the soldiers and sailors fought. At last it was decided that Penn should return to England with the bulk of the fleet, leaving Goodson with twelve of the lighter vessels. He sailed on the 25th of June, returning home by the western end of Cuba and the Florida Channel. One English vessel, the Discovery, had been blown up by accident at Jamaica. On the way another disaster occurred. The Paragon, which had been Badiley's ship in the Mediterranean, caught fire and blew up, with the loss of a hundred lives. Penn returned to England in a very intelligibly dismal state of mind. He was inclined to see the hand of the Lord visiting the sins of the expedition, and something he referred to mysteriously as the "sin in England," on the men of little faith about him. He was also visibly nervous as to the reception it was likely he would meet with from the Protector, and began garrulously excusing himself before he reached home. It was not without cause that he, and possibly his colleague Venables, of whom we have less evidence, looked forward to facing Oliver Cromwell. The old explanation of the Protector's anger, that he punished the generals for taking Jamaica when they were ordered to take San Domingo, was given in ignorance of their instructions; but he had good cause to be angry with them, both for the incapacity displayed at San Domingo, and for their hasty desertion of their conquest of Jamaica. As his spy service was both watchful and efficient, it is at least possible that Cromwell had warning of their letters to the king. They reached England on the 31st August, anchoring at Spithead. Within a fortnight they were both in the Tower, on the recommendation of the Protector's Council. They did not escape from this till they had made abject submission. Penn retired to the estate which he had begged for himself out of the confiscated property of the king's friends in Ireland, and was no more employed during Oliver Cromwell's life.

Goodson remained at Jamaica for nearly two years, prosecuting the war with Spain. The smallness of the force left under his command made it impossible for him to undertake operations on a great scale. In truth, what he did bore a very close resemblance to the piratical warfare afterwards carried on by the buccaneers. He sailed twice to the Spanish Main, burning and plundering small towns, taking water and provisions at unfortified places, but attempting nothing against the great port of Carthagena. To some among the English officers at Jamaica this method of conducting hostilities was not acceptable. They thought it piratical, and unworthy of a great State; but it was all Goodson could do, and it served a useful purpose. The first two years of our establishment in Jamaica were times of miserable weakness and suffering. The governors died one after the other, and the ranks of their followers were terribly thinned by fever. If during this interval a vigorous attack had been made by the Spaniards, who were acclimatised and expert in bush fighting, it is not impossible that we should have lost the island. The presence of Goodson's ships and his activity warded off this danger, and it is partly to him, therefore, that we must attribute the merit of retaining this colonial possession.