At length on the 27th Colonel Burton arrived from America with three thousand men of the Forty-sixth, Fifty-eighth, Gorham's rangers and Provincial troops, having lost five hundred men captured by the French on the voyage. Three days later the mine under the counterscarp was sprung with success, and Fort Moro was carried by storm with trifling loss, the Spaniards offering but little resistance. New batteries were then pushed forward along the shore at the foot of the Cavannos in order to play on the town. On the 10th of August these opened fire and on the same evening silenced Fort Puntal. The Spaniards then proposed a capitulation; and Albemarle, in consideration of their defence, granted them the honours of war, being in truth devoutly thankful to obtain possession of Havanna on any terms. His army was melting away rapidly from disease; there was indeed one brigade of four battalions which could not muster twenty men fit for duty. Albemarle hastened to ship it back to America; but Amherst could spare no more troops to replace these, having already reduced his garrison to a strength of less than four thousand men.[392] Albemarle hoped that rest and better quarters might restore the health of the army after the work of the siege was done; but on the contrary sickness increased. The losses actually caused by the enemy's fire during the siege were rather less than a thousand men killed and wounded, yet by the 18th of October the British had buried over five thousand men dead from sickness alone.[393] Nor did the transfer of the troops from Cuba to America serve to abate the plague among them; for the hapless brigade first shipped off by Albemarle lost three hundred and sixty men within a month after its return. Yet at any rate Cuba was taken, and Cuba in those days was reckoned a prize little less rich than India.
June 27.
Sept. 18.
The virtual destruction of the army before Havanna put all ideas of an attack on Louisiana out of the question; and the French seized the opportunity offered by the removal of so many troops from Canada to send a small squadron and fifteen hundred troops against Newfoundland. The British garrison being only one hundred strong could offer no resistance, and the island was accordingly surrendered. Amherst, however, sent his brother with a sufficient force to recover it; and the French after a short defence capitulated as prisoners of war. As Amherst's losses did not exceed fifty men, and the captured French garrison numbered six hundred, the enemy gained little by this brief occupation of Newfoundland.
Walker & Boutall del.
To face page 544.
GUADELOUPE, 1759.
HAVANNA, 1762.
MARTINIQUE, 1762.
BELLEISLE, 1761.
Aug. 1.
Sept. 24.
Sept. 25.
Oct. 4.
Oct. 5.
But in India also there were troops lying idle since the fall of Pondicherry, which could be employed against Spain. In June Admiral Cornish received secret orders for an expedition, which he communicated to the authorities at Calcutta; and on the 1st of August the fleet sailed away to eastward with a force of one thousand Europeans, half of them of Draper's regiment, and two thousand Sepoys, under General Draper. On the 24th of September, after much delay owing to stormy weather and the extremely defective condition of Cornish's ships, the expedition entered the bay of Manila and anchored off Fort Cavita. Draper decided not to waste time in reducing the fort, so landed his troops unopposed on the following day through a heavy surf, about a mile and a half from the walls of the city. On the 26th he seized a detached fort which had been abandoned by the Spaniards within two hundred yards of the glacis, and began to construct a battery, while the ships sailed up to draw the fire of the town upon themselves. On the 30th a storeship arrived with entrenching tools, but was driven ashore on the very same evening by a gale, and there lay hard and fast. By singular good fortune, however, she had taken the ground at a point where she served exactly to screen the rear of Draper's camp from the Spanish cannon, while her stores were landed with greater speed and safety than would have been possible had she remained afloat; for the gale continued for several days and forbade the passage of boats through the surf. Four days later the battery and the ships opened a furious fire, which in four hours silenced the enemy's guns, and by the next day had made a practicable breach. That night the Spaniards made a sally upon the British position with a thousand Indians, who, despite their ferocity and daring, were driven back with heavy loss; and at dawn of the 6th Draper's regiment and a party of sailors attacked the breach and carried the fortifications with little difficulty. Thereupon Manila, with the island of Luzon and its dependencies, surrendered to the British, paying four million dollars for ransom of the town and of the property contained therein. Thus fell Manila within ten days of the arrival of the British; but the siege though short was attended by much difficulty and hardship. Regular approaches were impracticable owing to the incessant rain; while the surf made the landing of troops and stores a matter of extreme labour and peril. Had not the defences of the town been for the most part feeble and the spirit of the garrison feebler still, the capture of the Philippines would have been no such simple matter. The story of Manila is, however, interesting as a comment on Wentworth's proceedings at Carthagena, justifying to the full Vernon's predilection for a direct assault at the earliest possible moment in all operations against the Spaniard.