The History of Cuba, vol. 2

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

Engineer-chief: Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick MacKellar.

Chief of the Military Health Board and of the medical corps: Sir Clifton Wintringham; sub-delegate: Richard Hunck and a staff of three physicians, four surgeons, four druggists and forty-four attendants.

A month passed in concluding the details of this well-elaborated plan. Finally on the sixth of May Admiral Pococke started from Martinique in the direction of the Paso de la Mano, where he was joined on the eighth by the division of Captain Hervey, who was blocking the squadron of Admiral de Blenac at Cape France; on the seventeenth they arrived at Cape Nicolas and on the twenty-third they met the Jamaica fleet under command of Sir James Douglas. The British naval forces, including these two divisions and the one that later arrived from North America, consisted of fifty-three warships of various kinds with a crew of ten thousand eight hundred men, and a great number of transports, among them two hundred vessels carrying provisions, hospital supplies, ammunition, etc. When the manner of conducting the expedition was at last decided upon, the fleet ordered to take part in the siege of Havana was composed of the following vessels:

The Admiral ship Namur of fifty cannons; Cambridge of eighty; Valiant; Culloden; Temerare; Dragon; Centaur; and Dublin of seventy-four; Marlborough and Temple of seventy; Oxford and Devonshire of sixty-six; Belleisle; Edgar; Alcide; Hampton Court; and Sterling Castle of sixty-four; Pembroke; Rippon; Nottingham; Defense; and Intrepid of sixty; Centurion; Depford; Sutherland; and Hampshire of fifty; the frigates Penzance, Dover and Enterprise of forty; Richmond and Alarm of thirty-two; Echo, Lizard, Trent, Cerberus and Boreas of twenty-eight; Mercury of twenty-four; Rose, Portmahon, Forvey and Glasgow of twenty; Bonetta, Cygnet and Merle of sixteen; the schooner Porcupine of sixteen, Barbadoes, Viper, Port Royal, Lurcher and Ferret of fourteen, and the bomb-vessels Thunder, Grenade and Basilisk, each of eight cannons.

Of such formidable dimensions were, according to Guiteras, the preparations made by Britain for the attack upon Havana. Little is heard of corresponding steps taken by her opponents. France was too exhausted to indulge in great expenditures of money or men. Spain was curiously unconcerned. The possibility of an attack upon Havana was discussed in Madrid, but the Spanish minister Grimaldi could not be made to believe that it might be successful. Cuba, too, little suspected what was in store for her. The new governor appointed to take the place of Cagigal, when the latter was promoted to the vice-regency of Mexico, was the Field Marshal D. Juan Prado y Portocasso. Before the consummation of the Family Pact, in March, 1670, King Carlos III. had told Prado of the menacing attitude of Britain and had warned him of the possibility of a rupture. He counted upon him to reorganize the island from a military point of view. Nevertheless Prado did not immediately after his appointment sail for Cuba, but lingered six more months in Spain, and, when he arrived on the island, wasted another month in a visit to his friend Madriaga, the governor of Santiago. He did not arrive in Havana until January, 1761. Valdes gives July as the month of his inauguration which seems improbable.

CHAPTER IV

When Prado took charge of the governorship, he immediately proceeded to build quarters for the reenforcement of dragoons which were to be sent over from Spain, and for that purpose engaged sixty galley-slaves from Vera Cruz. He also began work on the fortifications of Cabanas under the direction of the excellent engineer Francois Ribaut de Tirgale. But a second consignment of galley-slaves in June brought to Havana the "vomito negro," the yellow fever, of which Siam had made a gift to Mexico in 1713 and which so far had been unknown in Cuba. Physicians being unfamiliar with the terrible scourge, all remedies proved of no avail. Within three months eighteen hundred men of the garrison and the fleet succumbed to the disease. The hospitals were filled with the sick, and work on the important public constructions was suspended. Engineer Tirgale was one of the first stricken. He was succeeded by his brother Balthazar, but he himself was sick and had such insufficient and inadequate help that he was much handicapped in his work. New difficulties having arisen with the vigueros, or tobacco-planters, Prado convoked the Junta which agreed to fix the process, the quantity and the brands of tobacco which the General Factory was to receive from the planters.

Thus was the whole year 1761 wasted, while the signs of the impending outbreak multiplied and the danger of the dreaded invasion came nearer and nearer. On the sixteenth of January, war was declared and only on the twenty-sixth of February did the news reach Prado, for the vessel carrying the dispatches of the Spanish government had been captured by the tender of the Dublin. He called at once a meeting of the council and asked for one thousand veterans to replace the losses which the troops had sustained through the epidemic. He also demanded that he be furnished four thousand rounds of powder. The army that he could muster in the eventuality of an invasion did not number at that time more than four thousand six hundred men. Yet Prado could not be roused from a curious apathy that possessed him and that made him again lapse into the indolence of Creole life. It seemed impossible for him to realize that anybody would dare to attempt what neither Hossier, nor Vernon, nor Knowles had dared. M. de Blenac, who commanded a French fleet charged with the protection of Santo Domingo, and Prado's friend Madriaga were equally unsuspecting. Had the former come to an understanding with the commander of the Royal Spanish transports, they might have surprised the British in the straits of Bahama and averted the disaster.

On the twenty first of May, a business man from Santiago, Martin de Arana, who had been on an errand to Kingston and in his patriotic anxiety perceived the armaments and supplies that were being collected there, came to Havana to inform the government. Reluctantly Governor Prado consented to an interview with this man who had braved the sea voyage and suffered privations to save his country from the menacing attack. The attitude of the people as soon as the news spread was commendable. The sugar-planters promised their negroes freedom if they joined the troops of defense and the clergy went about rousing the spirit of the people to action. Bishop Pedro Agustino Morell of Santa Cruz did admirable work. He had during the expedition of Edward Vernon traversed the country on horseback, and stirred the people to resist the invaders. Beloved by his parishioners, whom he inspired with his zeal, he had for twenty years preached the holy war against the enemies of his native soil. His generosity and his self-denial knew no bounds. The word of such a man at such a moment had weight and the people were ready to go to any length of sacrifice; but the man at the head of the government seemed oblivious to the gravity of the situation and did nothing efficiently to prepare the defense of the city. Prado presided at the meetings of the War Junta which failed to suit the action of the word and wasted time in heated discussions. This War Council consisted of the "Marquès" of the Royal Transports, the honorary marine quartermaster, D. Juan Montalvo, Col. del Rio D. Alejandro Arroyo, the engineer D. Balthasar Ricaut, and the captains of the vessels anchored in the bay. Later it was joined by the Lieutenant-General D. Jose Manso de Velasco, the former viceroy of Peru, the Field Marshal D. Diego Tabares, ex-governor of Cartagena, and the Lieutenant-General Conde de Superanda, then visiting Havana. The council did not heed the warning of D. Martin de Arana, the Santiago trader, any more than did Governor Prado.