Then began that foul commerce which was another black stain on the history of Spanish colonization of the western hemisphere. Spanish ships descended upon the African coasts and kidnapped thousands of negroes for service in the Cuban cane and tobacco fields. The horrors of the trade cannot be magnified and are too distressing for repetition. It is sufficient to say that in Havana it is understood that the harbor was free from sharks which now swarm there, until they followed the slave ships from the African coasts in multitudes, for the feast of slaves who were thrown overboard on the long voyage. Scores and hundreds of Africans died during the journey, from the hardships they were compelled to undergo, and Havana harbor itself was the last grave of many of these hapless ones.
GREAT BRITAIN THREATENS SPANISH POSSESSIONS.
It was just after the middle of the seventeenth century and during the rule of Oliver Cromwell in England, that the Spanish governors of Cuba began to fear an attack by a British fleet. A squadron sailed in 1655 with the design of capturing Jamaica, a purpose which was easily accomplished. That island was taken by Great Britain, the Spanish forces defending it were utterly defeated, the governor was killed, and many of the inhabitants removed, in consequence, to Cuba. From Jamaica the same fleet sailed for Havana, but the attack was repulsed and the ships abandoned the attempt. Except for the encroachments of the French upon the island of Santo Domingo, and the continual piratical incursions of French and English buccaneers, the Spanish in the West Indies were not threatened with any more hostilities except by their own internal dissensions until 1762. At that time Spain and England were at war, Spain in alliance with the French, and it was decided by the British government that Cuba was a vulnerable possession and a valuable one that ought to be taken.
The capture of Havana by forces under the English flag fills little space in the history of England and Spain, because of the magnitude of the interests involved elsewhere. It is almost forgotten in America, in spite of the bearing of all its contemporary incidents upon the rapidly approaching revolution, and yet it was an achievement of the colonial troops and consequently the first assault upon Cuba by Americans.
It was an event of the first importance in its own day and contained lessons of the first moment for the guidance of those who had to plan the conduct of the war against Spain in 1898. It proved that American troops under efficient officers could take the field with success against double their number of Spaniards fully provisioned and strongly intrenched. It proved that Havana could be successfully assaulted by a combined military and naval force, regardless of her picturesque but obsolete fortifications. Spain's lack of administrative ability in the later war as well as in the first, destroying any advantage to be derived from balls and cannon. On the other side it proved that Americans had to look forward to a considerable loss of life as a result of climatic conditions, if they attempted to conduct hostile operations in Cuba during the summer season.
The utter incapacity for straightforward, pertinacious fighting, which both Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington found in the Spanish army during the Peninsular war, was as conspicuous fifty years before, when the Americans took Havana, and may rightly be argued as perpetually inherent in the national character; for though the annals of Spain are filled with instances of individual courage of the first rank, demoralization sets in as soon as they come together in numbers in the face of a civilized foe. Their chief maneuver in the course of a century and a half, has been just plain running away. The victorious Wellington, seeing his Spanish allies running for dear life just after he had whipped the opposing French line in the last battle of the peninsular campaign, was moved to remark that he had seen many curious things in his life, but never before 20,000 men engaged in a foot race.
Yet the fight made by the Spaniards in Havana during the attack of the British and colonial forces in 1762 is the one notable instance of a prolonged struggle between men who speak English and men who speak Spanish. History may be searched in vain, either in the old or new world, for a defense as able in point of generalship or as stubborn in resistance as the Spaniards made at the siege of Havana. In all other cases, from the Elizabethan campaigns in Holland to the war with Mexico, the men educated in the Spanish school of arms have been content to spend their energies upon a single assault and then flee, sometimes even when the odds were greatly in their favor.
The English Armada left Portsmouth on March 5th, 1762, under the command of the gallant Admiral Pococke and Lord Albemarle, the force moving in seven divisions. It consisted of nineteen ships of the line, eighteen frigates or smaller men-of-war, and 150 transports containing about 10,000 soldiers, nearly all infantry. At the Island of Hayti, then called Hispanola, the British were joined by the successful expedition from Martinique. Together they sat down before Havana, July 6th, 1762.
SPAIN'S INTELLECTUAL DRY ROT.
Spain, suffering, as it suffers to-day, from intellectual dry rot, had known for weeks of the intended beleaguerment. Then, as now, nothing adequate was done to meet it. The Governor of Havana, the Marquis de Gonzalez, was a gallant soldier, as he was to prove; but that ounce of prevention which is proverbially worth more than the pound of cure, was not taken by him, and the British found the fortifications in a partially ruinous condition, and the fourteen ships of the line which were lying in the harbor before the city in such a state that they could hardly be called in commission. The Spanish army of defense numbered 27,000 men, and was in better condition; but the Spanish sailors were utterly demoralized by the granting of too much shore liberty, and the best use the Spaniard could put his fighting ships to was by sinking them at the entrance to the anchorage to prevent the entrance of the British fleet. Once the enemy was before the city, however, all was activity. The fortifications, which were too newly erected to be quite incapable of repair, were set in order, the guns of Morro Castle and of the fort known as the Puntal, across from it, were trained on the advancing foe, and the Spanish ships were sunk, as has been said.