This was in the year 1536. The Governor of the island had remained at Ciudadela, and when six citizens arrived from Port Mahon, who had been released by Barbarossa because they advised the surrender, the Governor ordered them to be put to death. Barbarossa and his Moors evacuated Port Mahon and departed with his plunder and with many wretched people to be sold into slavery. The Emperor was greatly distressed at these repeated acts of piracy, and in 1541 he fitted out a second expedition, this time against Algiers. Again he led the expedition in person; but it was a failure owing to the furious gales and deluges of rain.
The islands were kept in a constant state of alarm. In 1558 a Turkish fleet of 140 vessels hove in sight. Ciudadela and Port Mahon had been put in the best possible posture of defence, when fifteen thousand Turks were landed, under a leader named Mustapha. Having occupied the open country, they laid siege to Ciudadela, which was held by a garrison of seven hundred men. A battery of artillery was planted against the walls, and, after making a breach, three assaults were delivered and gallantly repulsed. The besieged Minorcans were resolved to defend the place to the death, and they would have done so if it had not been for a disastrous accident. The magazine caught fire and all their powder was destroyed. The men proposed to their leaders, Arquimbau, the Lieutenant-Governor, and Captain Noyet, to attempt to fight their way to Port Mahon. They came out, the men of Alayor and Mercadal leading, women and children in the centre, and the rest of the garrison bringing up the rear, under Arquimbau. The Turks attacked them furiously, and only 150 got back into the town. On July 10 another assault was delivered, and at last the place was taken. Many of the besieged were killed in cold blood, and the rest were carried off to be sold as slaves. On the same day the Turks embarked and made sail.
The Viceroy, Don Guillermo Rocafull, was not in the island. He returned at once and proceeded to repair the fortifications of Ciudadela, bringing several families to re-people the place from Majorca and Valencia. The castle of San Felipe at Port Mahon was also repaired and strengthened.
The piracies continued until well into the eighteenth century, and kept the people in a constant state of terror and alarm; but confidence slowly returned, and Minorca had long been free from actual invasion when the War of the Succession broke out, after the death of Charles II., the last of the Austrian Kings of Spain.
CHAPTER III
British occupation of Minorca.
The people of Spain had long been misgoverned, impoverished, and oppressed when the last king of the House of Austria died and left the War of Succession as a legacy to his subjects.
The descendant of Maria Teresa, sister of Charles II. and wife of Louis XIV. of France, would have had the best right if her marriage had not been allowed on condition of the most solemn renunciation of the crown of Spain for the offspring of it. The next heir was the Emperor Leopold I., descended from a sister of Philip IV. of Spain, the father of Charles II. He resigned his claim to his second son, the Archduke Charles. Strongly in favour of the Austrian claim, the unhappy King was forced by priestly threats on his deathbed to sign a will declaring Philip, Duke of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV. and Maria Teresa, to be heir to the Spanish monarchy. Philip was then seventeen. The Archduke Charles was fifteen.
Louis XIV. was strictly pledged to the Governments of England and Holland not to allow his grandson to succeed. In February 1701, in defiance of this solemn compact, Philip was sent to Madrid and proclaimed as Philip V. Castille acknowledged him. Aragon, Catalonia, and the Balearic Islands declared for the Archduke Charles as Charles III. He was supported by England, Holland, Portugal, Savoy, and the Empire. War was declared on May 15, 1702, and the War of the Spanish Succession commenced. In March 1704 Charles III. arrived at Lisbon with four thousand Dutch and eight thousand English troops, where he was joined by Don Juan Henriquez, Admiral of Castille, one of the greatest of the Spanish nobles. On August 3 Gibraltar was taken, and garrisoned with two thousand men, the Prince of Hesse Darmstadt being the first Governor. Charles III. then proceeded to Barcelona, the almost impregnable castle of Monjuich having previously been captured by the Earl of Peterborough. Amidst great rejoicings Charles made his public entry on October 23, 1705. Peterborough entered Valencia in triumph on February 4, 1706, and Majorca declared for King Charles.
General Stanhope was appointed Envoy Extraordinary to King Charles and sent out in command of reinforcements. He was a grandson of the first Earl of Chesterfield and son of Alexander Stanhope, who was Ambassador at Madrid in the time of Charles II. Having passed his youth in his father’s house, he was well acquainted with Spanish and with the feelings of the people. He learnt the art of war under Marlborough.
The disastrous battle of Almanza was fought in April 1707, and for some time the cause of King Charles seemed almost hopeless. The Duke of Berwick entered Valencia and conquered Aragon, the French claimant, Philip, abolishing all its provincial privileges; while General Stanhope was reduced to a strictly defensive system. King Charles’s base was the east coast of Spain and the Mediterranean Sea. The English fleet was therefore of the utmost importance, and it became very urgent that the ships should remain out, instead of returning home for the winter. But, although Majorca was for Charles, the harbour of Port Mahon was still occupied by French and Spanish troops for Philip.