However he made it unpleasant for the arrogant invaders. “I now send a smart English sergeant,” he writes, “who will give your Excellency lengthy news of the whole state of the island.” Poor English sergeant, smart even in his captivity! I hope they did not make things very hard for him in Mexico. That is the worst of history. The ultimate fate of the pawns is never told, only in these state papers there is that one entry that pictures for us the upright young figure with the keen blue eyes and firm set mouth, firm even in misfortune. God rest his soul! and God bless him for keeping up the honour of the English nation.
Even when reliefs did come, they brought little comfort to the harassed Governor. In August 1657, two captains landed at Ochos Rios, not far from where Columbus spent his weary year. They were supposed to help the Spanish Governor but, as soldiers, they pointed out to him the hopelessness of the situation. They said he could not succeed in the interior, that “it will cost some trouble to capture any horses from the enemy, and with infantry the risk is manifest.” I have seen the country and I can't imagine how they thought to use horses.
But in spite of these Job's comforters, Ysassi kept writing bravely to the Viceroy that he was harrying the enemy, that still they could not get any good from the hatos that they held.
“Those who come to get beef, die without anyone being left to carry the news...” What a picture of bloodthirsty, merciless war it gives us! When the great golden moon sends her light streaming through the coconut walks, and the glorious night is heavy with the scent of the orange flowers and the pimento groves, I cannot but think of those bloody days in the seventeenth century when the English drove the Spaniards to the remote corners of the island, and the Spaniards in their turn killed remorselessly, so that none should go back to tell the tale.
Again he reports in the middle of September,
“I sallied out upon the road to encounter them with the few troops I had, which were about 80 men” (Oh, for the might of Spain!) “because the others are without shoes and not accustomed to the discomforts of the open country.”
He descants on their ragged condition. “The few soldiers I have are naked and barefoot and cannot stand the mosquitoes” (I sympathise with them)—“Please help them.” He has not even paper to write his reports and the whole history is punctuated with prayers for provisions, “for soldiers will fight badly if they have nothing to eat and are badly clothed. I assure your Excellency that some die reduced to sticks.”
It was evidently a prolonged series of skirmishes, with sometimes one party conquering, sometimes the other, but the Spaniards seem to have thought their re-establishment was merely a matter of time. Once they gave their minds to the matter they must win, and meanwhile Ysassi was doing useful work holding the place till the good time came. They could not believe they had lost Jamaica.
“For the love of God,” he prays the Governor of Cuba, “I again ask you to send me not linen, or a new shirt, because I do not make use of it” (a gallant of Spain!) “but some old cloth.”
But brave Ysassi was nearing the end. In July 1658 he had reinforcements from Mexico but is obliged to write sadly—“In fine, sir, on this 26th June the enemy defeated me with the loss of 300 men although his loss, so far as troops are concerned, was greater.” (The pitiful pride!) “If they beat me,” he says in effect, “me starving, short of ammunition, provisions, everything that might enable me to make good, at least I have given them something better than they gave me.”