THE MORO AND THE HAVANNA TAKEN.

277

1762. entrance of the harbour was secured by two forts deemed well nigh impregnable, the forts of Puntal and of Moro. It was against the Moro that the English first directed their attack. They began on the 12th of June to construct their batteries, but so thin was the soil, and so hard the rock beneath, that they advanced but very slowly. The seamen, however, cordially co-operated with the soldiers; by their joint exertions the batteries were at length completed, and the cannon dragged with prodigious labour over a long extent of rugged shore. Several of the men at work dropped down dead with heat, thirst, and fatigue. At length the artillery of the besiegers began to play upon the fort, and some vigorous sallies of the besieged were steadily repulsed. One morning three ships of the English fleet stationed themselves as close as they could to the Moro, and attempted by their fire to dismount its guns, but they were compelled to withdraw, after slight effect upon the enemy, and great damage to themselves. Many days elapsed with little progress; nevertheless the besiegers continued undaunted, and towards the close of July they were cheered by the arrival of some expected reinforcements from New York. On the 30th of that month the mines having been sprung, and a practicable breach effected (though still narrow and difficult) the English troops marched up to the assault. The enemy did not on this occasion display the same intrepidity as in their former sallies; many threw down their arms, and cried for quarter; many others rushed headlong towards the water, where they perished; yet their officers set them a most gallant example, and it was not until both their first and second in command (Don Luis de Velasco and the Marques de Gonzales) had fallen mortally wounded that the besiegers stood victorious on the summit of the castle wall.

The Moro thus conquered, batteries were forthwith raised against the Havanna itself, and on the 11th of August their fire began. Within six hours they had silenced nearly all the enemy's guns; flags of truce then appeared from every quarter of the town; and a capitulation ensued, by

which, not only the Havanna, but the district 180 miles to the westward, and all the ships in the harbour, were yielded to the English. This capitulation was not signed until the morning of the 13th, though the 12th has been more commonly alleged, for the sake of connecting this auspicious event with the birthday of the Prince of Wales. It came in good time, the English had already lost above 1,100 men from sickness or the sword, and I find it asserted that at the time of the surrender no more than 2,500 remained capable of real service.*

Treasure and merchandise of immense value, the whole, according to one computation, not far short of 3,000,000%.**, fell into the hands of the victors. But great and just discontents arose at the distribution of the prizemoney, in violation, it was said, of the established rules. While no more than 37. 14s. 9d. were allotted to a common seaman, and 4l. 1s. 8d. to a common soldier, the Admiral and General each obtained the enormous sum of 122,6977.

Shortly afterwards was achieved a conquest of scarcely less importance, in an opposite quarter of the globe. An expedition against the Philippine Islands had been sent out from Madras; it comprised only one King's regiment, and in all, including Sepoys and Marines, only 2,300 men of land forces, commanded by Brigadier-General, afterwards Sir William Draper. They landed near Manilla, the chief city, on the 24th of September, before the Spanish garrison had received any official tidings of the war. The Archbishop, however, who acted as General and Governor, maintained his walls with becoming resolution; nay, on one occasion he directed a sally of several hundred native islanders who had been trained to arms in the Spanish service, and who came rushing on with savage ferocity; but they were soon repulsed, and many of them died gnawing like wild beasts the bayonets that pierced them. On the twelfth day after the landing, a practicable breach having been effected, the

* Entick's History of the War, vol. v. p. 382,

** Annual Register 1762, part i. p. 43.

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS REDUCED.

279

1762. English carried the city by storm, and gave it up during several hours to all the horrors of pillage. The Archbishop and his officers, who had retired to the citadel, were admitted to a capitulation for the whole cluster of islands and the ships in harbour, by which they consented to pay as ransom for their property two millions of dollars in money, and the same sum in bills upon the treasury at Madrid.

But the reduction of the Philippines was not our only success in that quarter. A frigate, and a ship of the line from Draper's squadron, overtook and captured an Acapulco galleon, the Santisima Trinidad, with a cargo valued at three millions of dollars. Another and still greater prize was the Hermione, bound from Lima to Cadiz, which fell into our hands when almost arrived at its destination, being taken off Cape St. Vincent by two English frigates. The treasure on board, amounting to full 800,000l., arrived in London, and passed through St. James's Street, on the very morning of the Prince of Wales's birth; and the King, with all the company assembled in Her Majesty's anteroom on this joyful event, surveyed from the window the exulting procession, attended by standards and kettle-drums.

To counterbalance these great advantages on the part of England the French could only point to their descent at St. John's in Newfoundland, from which, moreover, they were expelled in the course of the same summer, and the Spaniards only to their conquest of the Portuguese colony of Sacramento on the Rio de La Plata. In that colony, however, they seized some British ships, and merchandise of considerable value, and they were the better able to defeat and repulse an expedition which several private adventurers, English and Portuguese, had directed against the Spanish settlement of Buenos Ayres.

Our great successes in this year both by sea and land afforded opposite arguments to the contending parties at home. The partisans of Bute and Newcastle might boast that Victory had not resigned with Mr. Pitt. On the other hand, the followers or admirers of the Great Commoner put

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forth a variety of ingenious illustrations tending to prove that the honour of the recent conquests belonged in truth to him: "The single eloquence of Mr. Pitt, like an an"nihilated star, can shine many months after it has set; I "tell you it has conquered Martinico," says Horace Walpole. * "The instrument which Mr. Pitt used still "vibrated, though touched by a different hand,” Thackeray.**

says Mr. But no successes, however great, no triumphs, however glorious, could turn the thoughts of Lord Bute from his constant object of peace, an object, which, however in itself praiseworthy, demands a due regard both to alliances contracted and to advantages gained. He made his first overtures to the Court of Versailles through the neutral Court of Sardinia; they were of course eagerly accepted, and a new negotiation commenced. On the 6th of September the Duke of Bedford embarked as Ambassador from England; on the 12th the Duke de Nivernois landed as Ambassador from France. Of these two noblemen, Bedford, though well versed in affairs, was, perhaps, in some degree, disqualified by his hasty temper for the profession of a Temple or a Gondomar; and Nivernois was only celebrated for his graceful manners and his pretty songs. *** Indeed, as I find it alleged, neither of these Dukes was intrusted with the real and secret business, which passed between Choiseul and Bute through the agency of the Sardinian Envoys.† I am bound to say, however, that Bedford's own despatches, as To G. Montagu, March 22. 1762. **Life of Chatham, vol. ii. p. 8.

*** The best of these (and yet poor enough) is probably his Gentille Boulangère:

(Chansons Choisies, vol. iv. p. 105. ed. Londres, 1783.)

From private information to Mr. Adolphus (Hist., vol. i. p. 96. ed. 1840). Compare his narrative with Mr. Wright's (Cavendish Debates, vol. i. p. 627.) and Mr. Thackeray's (Life of Chatham, vol. ii. p. 11.).

1762.

RENEWED NEGOTIATIONS WITH FRANCE.

281

preserved in the State Paper Office, seem to me to prove an earnest and careful attention to his duties. Nor would he have knowingly submitted to any diminution of authority. When soon after his landing he found by his advices from home a new and unexpected curtailment in his former full powers, he wrote to Lord Bute from Paris on the 20th, and to Lord Egremont on the 21st and again on the 24th of September, complaining in strong terms of the deficiency, and insisting that it should be supplied.

With the anxiety for peace which now prevailed on both sides a few days sufficed to settle the principal conditions. It was agreed with respect to Spain and Portugal that each should preserve the same limits as before hostilities began. The Spaniards were required to concede all the three points on which their Declaration of War against England had been founded, referring the questions of capture to British Courts of Law, admitting our claim to cut log-wood in Honduras, and relinquishing their own to catch fish off Newfoundland. Indeed, as to this Spanish claim of fishery, says Sir Joseph Yorke, "it is a point we should not dare to "yield, as Mr. Pitt told them, though they were masters of "the Tower of London."*

With respect to France and England, it was agreed that each should refrain from taking any further part or furnishing any further succours in the German war. The French troops were to restore whatever territories they held in Hesse or Hanover, and evacuate those of Cleves and Gueldres. Minorca was to be exchanged for Belleisle, and the harbour of Dunkirk reduced to the state which had been fixed by the peace of Aix La Chapelle, and by preceding treaties.

In America, France ceded to England the provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and Cape Breton, with stipulations for the free exercise of their religion by the Roman Catholics of Canada, and that such of them as chose might have liberty to leave the country, and transport their effects, within the space of the ensuing eighteen months. The limits of Loui* To Mr. Mitchell, October 9. 1762