[Footnote 40: In fifteen days 110 men and women were assassinated in the capital alone, some of them persons of distinction. Canovas, Decadencia de Espana, Libro VI.]

CHAPTER XXI

BRITISH ATTACKS ON PUERTO RICO--SIEGE OF SAN JUAN BY SIR RALPH ABERCROMBIE

1678-1797

The _entente cordiale_ which had existed between England under Charles I and Spain under Philip IV ceased with the tragic death of the first-named monarch.[41]

Immediately after Cromwell's elevation both France and Spain made overtures for an alliance with England. But the Protector well knew that in the event of war with either power, Spain's colonies and treasure-laden galleons offered a better chance for obtaining booty than the poor possessions of France. He favored an alliance with Louis XIV, and ended by signing a treaty with him in 1657.

The first result of the hostilities that ensued was the capture by the English Admirals Blake and Stayner of several richly laden galleons.

From that time to the end of the eighteenth century England's attempts to secure the two most-coveted Antilles (Cuba and Puerto Rico) continued with short intervals of peace.

In 1768 an English fleet of 22 ships, with a landing force under the command of the Earl of Estren, appeared before San Juan and demanded its surrender. Before a formal attack could be made a furious hurricane wrecked the fleet on Bird Island, and everybody on board perished excepting a few soldiers and marines, who escaped a watery grave only to be made prisoners.[42]

It is certain, however, that on August 5, 1702, an English brigantine and a sloop came to Arecibo and landed 30 men, who were forced to reembark with considerable loss, though the details of this affair, as given by Friar Abbad, and repeated by Mr. Neuman, are evidently largely drawn from imagination.

In September of the following year (1703) there were landings of Englishmen near Loiza and in the neighborhood of San German, of which we know only that they were stoutly opposed; and we learn from an official document that there was another landing at Boca Chica on the south coast in 1743, when the English were once more obliged to reembark with the loss of a pilot-boat.

These incessant attacks, not on Puerto Rico only, but on all the other Spanish possessions, and the reprisals they provoked, created such animosity between the people of both countries that hostilities had practically commenced before the declaration of war (October 23, 1739). In November Admiral Vernon was already in the Antilles with a large fleet. He took Porto Bello, laid siege to Cartagena, but was forced to withdraw; then he made an ineffectual attack on Cuba, after which he passed round Cape Horn into the Pacific, caused great consternation in Chile, sacked and burned Payta, captured the galleon Covadonga with a cargo worth $1,500,000, and finally returned to England with a few ships only and less than half his men.

The next war between the two nations was the result of the famous Bourbon family compact, and lasted from 1761 to 1763.

Two powerful fleets sailed from England for the Antilles; the one under the orders of Admiral Rodney attacked the French colonies and took Martinique, Granada, Santa Lucia, San Vicente, and Tabago; the other under Admiral Pocock appeared before Havana, June 2, 1762, with a fleet of 30 line-of-battle ships, 100 transports, and 14,000 landing troops under the command of the Earl of Albemarle. In four days the English took "la Cabana," which Prado, the governor, considered the key to the city. For some unexplained reason the Spanish fleet became useless; but Captain Louis Velasco defended the Morro, and for two months and ten days he kept the English at bay, till they undermined the walls of the fort and blew them up. Then Prado capitulated (August 13), and Havana with its forts and defenses, with 60 leagues of territory to the west of the city, with $15,000,000, an immense quantity of naval and military stores, 9 line-of-battle ships and 3 frigates, was delivered into Albemarle's hands. It was Puerto Rico's turn next, and preparations were made for an attack, when the signing of the treaty of peace in Paris (February, 1763) averted the imminent danger.

By the stipulations of that treaty England returned Havana and Manila[43] to Spain in exchange for Florida and some territories on the Mississippi; she also returned to France part of her conquered possessions.

In 1778 Charles III joined France in a war against England, the motives for which, as explained by the king's minister, were frivolous in the extreme. The real reason was England's refusal to admit Spain as mediator in the differences with her North American colonies. This war lasted till 1783, and though the Antilles, as usual, became the principal scene of war, Puerto Rico happily escaped attack.

Not so during the hostilities that broke out anew in consequence of Charles IV's offensive and defensive alliance with the French Republic, signed in San Ildefonso on the 18th of August, 1796.

In February, 1797, Admiral Henry Harvey, with 60 ships, including transports and small craft, and from 6,000 to 7,000 troops under the orders of Sir Ralph Abercrombie, appeared before the island of Trinidad and took possession of it with but little resistance from the Spanish garrison. On the 17th of April the whole fleet appeared before San Juan.

The capital was well prepared for defense. The forts, as now existing, were completed, and the city surrounded by a wall the strength of which may be estimated by the appearance of the parts still intact. On these defenses 376 pieces of cannon of different caliber were planted, besides 35 mortars, 4 howitzers, and 3 swivel guns. The garrison was reduced to about 200 men, part of the troops having been sent to la Espanola to quell the insurrection of the negro population led by Toussaint L'Ouverture. There were, besides these 200 veteran troops, 4,000 militiamen, about 2,000 men from the towns in the interior (urbanos) armed with lances and machetes, 12 gunboats and several French privateers, the crews of which numbered about 300.

Abercrombie landed on the 18th at Cangrejos (Santurce) with 3,000 men, and demanded the surrender of the city. Governor Castro, in polite but energetic language, refused, and hostilities commenced. For the next thirteen days there were skirmishes and more or less serious encounters on land and sea. On the morning of the 1st of May the defenders of the city were preparing a general attack on the English lines, when, lo! the enemy had reembarked during the night, leaving behind his spiked guns and a considerable quantity of stores and ammunition.

[Illustration: Fort San Geronimo, at Santurce, near San Juan.]

The people ascribed this unexpected deliverance from their foes to the miraculous intervention of the Virgin, but the real reason for the raising of the siege was the strength of the fortifications. "Whoever has viewed these fortifications," says Colonel Flinter,[44] "must feel surprised that the English with a force of less than 5,000 men should lay siege to the place, a force not sufficient for a single line along the coast on the opposite side of the bay to prevent provisions from being sent to the garrison from the surrounding country. Sir Ralph's object in landing, surely, could only have been to try whether he could surprise or intimidate the scanty garrison. Had he not reembarked very soon, he would have had to repent his temerity, for the shipping could not safely remain at anchor where there was no harbor and where a dangerous coast threatened destruction. His communication with the country was cut off by the armed peasantry, who rose _en masse_, and to the number of not less than 20,000 threw themselves into the fortress in less than a week after the invasion, so that the British forces would, most undoubtedly, have been obliged to surrender at discretion had the commander not effected a timely retreat."

The enemy's retreat was celebrated with a solemn Te Deum in the cathedral, at which the governor, the municipal authorities, and all the troops assisted. The municipality addressed the king, giving due credit to the brilliant military qualities displayed during the siege by the governor and his officers. The governor was promoted to the rank of field-marshal and the officers correspondingly. To the municipality the privilege was granted to encircle the city's coat of arms with the words: "For its constancy, love, and fidelity, this city is yclept very noble and very loyal."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 41: He was decapitated February 9, 1649.]

[Footnote 42: So says Abbad. No mention is made of this episode in Senor Acosta's notes, nor is the name of Earl Estren to be found among those of the British commanders of that period.]

[Footnote 43: Manila was taken in October, 1762.]

[Footnote 44: An Account of Puerto Rico. London, 1834,]

CHAPTER XXII

BRITISH ATTACKS ON PUERTO RICO _(continued)_--INVASIONS BY COLOMBIAN INSURGENTS

1797-1829

The raising of the siege of San Juan by Abercrombie did not raise at the same time the blockade of the island. Communications with the metropolis were cut off, and the remittances from Mexico which, under the appellation of "situados," constituted the only means of carrying on the Government, were suspended.[45] In San Juan the garrison was kept on half pay, provisions were scarce, and the influx of immigrants from la Espanola, where a bloody civil war raged at the time, increased the consumption and the price. The militia corps was disbanded to prevent serious injury to the island's agricultural interests, although English attacks on different points of the coast continued, and kept the inhabitants in a state of constant fear and alarm.

In December, 1797, an English three-decker and a frigate menaced Aguadilla, but an attempt at landing was repulsed. Another attempt to land was made at Guayanilla with the same result, and in June, 1801, Guayanilla was again attacked. This time an English frigate sent several launches full of men ashore, but they were beaten off by the people, who, armed only with lances and machetes, pursued them into the water, "swimming or wading up to their necks," says Mr. Neuman.[46]

From 1801 to 1808 England's navy and English privateers pursued both French and Spanish ships with dogged pertinacity. In August, 1803, British privateers boarded and captured a French frigate in the port of Salinas in this island. Four Spanish homeward-bound frigates fell into their hands about the same time. Another English frigate captured a French privateer in what is now the port of Ponce (November 12, 1804) and rescued a British craft which the privateer had captured.

Even the negroes of Haiti armed seven privateers under British auspices and preyed upon the French and Spanish merchant ships in these Antilles.

Governor Castro, during the whole of his period of service, had vainly importuned the home Government for money and arms and ships to defend this island against the ceaseless attacks of the English. When he handed over the command to his successor, Field-Marshal Toribio Montes, in 1804, the treasury was empty. He himself had long ceased to draw his salary, and the money necessary to attend to the most pressing needs for the defense was obtained by contributions from the inhabitants.

While the people of Puerto Rico were thus giving proofs of their loyalty to Spain, and sacrificing their lives and property to preserve their poverty-stricken island to the Spanish crown, the other colonies, rich and important, were breaking the bonds that united them to the mother country.

The example of the English colonies had long since awakened among the more enlightened class of creoles on the continent a desire for emancipation, which the events in France on the one hand, and the ill-advised, often cruel measures adopted by the Spanish authorities to quench that aspiration, on the other hand, had only served to make irresistible. But Puerto Rico did not aspire to emancipation. It never had been a colony, there was no creole class, and the only indigenous population--the "jibaros," the mixed descendants of Indians, negroes, and Spaniards--were too poor, too illiterate, too ignorant of everything concerning the outside world to look with anything but suspicion upon the invitations of the insurgents of Colombia and Venezuela to join them or imitate their example. They, nor the great majority of the masses whom Bolivar, San Martin, Hidalgo, and others liberated from an oppressive yoke, cared little for the rights of man.

When the Colombian insurgents landed on the coast of Puerto Rico, to encourage and assist the people to shake off a yoke which did not gall them, they were looked upon by the natives as freebooters of another class who came to plunder them.

On the 20th of December, 1819, an insurgent brigantine and a sloop attempted a landing at Aguadilla. They were beaten back by a Spanish sergeant at the head of a detachment of twenty men, while a Mr.

Domeneck with his servants attended to the artillery in Fort San Carlos, constructed during Castro's administration. In February, 1825, some insurgent ships landed fifty marines at night near Point Boriquen, where the lighthouse now is. They captured the fort by surprise and dismounted the guns, but the people of Aguadilla replaced them on their carriages the next day and offered such energetic resistance to the landing parties that they had to retreat.

Another landing was effected at Patillas in November, 1829. This port was opened to commerce by royal decree December 30, 1821. There were several small trading craft in the port at the time of the attack.

They fell a prey to the invaders; but when they landed they were met by the armed inhabitants, and after a sharp fight, in which the Colombians had 8 men killed, they reembarked.

The beginning of the nineteenth century found Spain deprived of all that beautiful island world which Columbus had laid at the foot of the throne of Ferdinand and Isabel four centuries ago, of all but a part of the "Espanola," since called Santo Domingo, and of the two Antilles. Before the first quarter of the century had passed all the continental colonies had broken the bonds that united them to the mother country, and before the twentieth century the last vestiges of the most extensive and the richest colonial empire ever possessed by any nation refused further allegiance, as the logical result of four centuries of political, religious, and financial myopia.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 45: They ceased altogether in 1810, as a result of the revolution in Mexico.]

[Footnote 46: Benefactores and Hombres Illustres de Puerto Rico, p.

289.]