1740.

ADMIRAL VERNON.

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courage, and so conducive to the fame of England, as ever to deserve a conspicuous place in her annals.

I now revert to the second squadron fitted out in 1739, against the Spanish West Indies. It was entrusted to Captain Edward Vernon, an officer, in most respects, the very opposite of Anson. As calmness and composure were the principal characteristics of the one, so were violence and passion of the other. His father, who had been Secretary of State under King William, had instilled a blind hatred of France, which the son, as a Member of Parliament, indulged by frequent sallies against the pacific policy of Walpole. So unmeasured were his invectives, that he was more than once in danger of the Tower.* He became, however, a great favourite with the multitude, who were, like himself, impatient of peace, and prone, as usual, to consider the noisiest patriot the most sincere; and on the breaking out of war he was appointed an Admiral and Commander of the West Indian squadron, by the very Minister whom he had assailed, from the same concession to popular clamour which had produced the war itself. He was undoubtedly a good officer, so far as courage, enterprise, and experience can constitute that character; but he was harsh and haughty to his inferiors, untoward with his equals, mutinous and railing to all placed above him in authority.

Vernon having sailed from England in July, 1739, and being baffled in attempting to intercept the Azogue or quicksilver ships, appeared off Porto Bello on the 20th of November with six men-of-war. The Spanish garrison was only on the peace establishment, and not even complete at that number; the ammunition scanty, and in part spoiled; and many of the cannon, for want of mountings, lying useless on the ground.† On the 21st, Vernon began operations against a fort which protected the entrance of the harbour, and which, as a bravado of its strength, bore the name of the Iron Castle. The fire of his musketry having driven the Spaniards from the lower batteries, his sailors scaled them, mounting on one another's shoulders,

*Tindal's Hist. vol. viii. p. 424.

† Juan et Ulloa, Voyage d'Amérique, vol. i. p. 80. ed. 1752. There is also given a plan of the town and harbour.

and gained the place with very slight resistance. The same evening the Admiral began to batter the Castillo de la Gloria, lying further down the bay, and defending the open town; and he was preparing next day to renew his cannonade, when he observed the castle hang out a white standard, and a boat push towards him with a flag of truce. He readily allowed the garrison to march out with military honours, and thus obtained possession both of castle and town. His own loss in killed was only seven

men.*

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From the several castles he took on board sixty pieces of cannon, spiking the remainder; and employed the gunpowder he captured in springing mines and destroying the fortifications. "It is remarkable," says a contemporary, "that they found more danger and difficulty in demolishing these works than in taking them."+ This object being achieved, Vernon re-embarked his men and returned to Jamaica. The treasure seized in Porto Bello was very inconsiderable; only 10,000 dollars. The sailors might, perhaps, complain and wonder that the Admiral had restrained them from cutting off and bringing home the ears of the Spaniards, yet they must have deemed it some compensation that he generously resigned to them his own share of prize money.

Such was the capture of Porto Bello, which the reader will scarcely think either very glorious in achievement, or very important in results. But it had been gained by an enemy of Walpole! -and the whole Opposition, with one voice, hastened to proclaim it an heroic exploit! More especially was it urged that Vernon had taken Porto Bello with only six ships, while in 1726 Hosier had not attacked it with twenty; a cry utterly senseless, since it was not pretended that want of force or of courage had hindered Hosier from taking the place, but merely his instructions, that sought to avert and that did avert a war, Nay, so inconsistent is party rancour, that while Vernon

*Official account, Whitehall, March 15. 1740. London Gazettes. † Tindal's Hist. vol. viii. p. 444.

"I have longed this four years past to cut off some of their ears, "and was in hopes I should have sent you one for a sample now, but "our good Admiral, God bless him, was too merciful!" (Letter from a sailor on board the Squadron to his wife, printed in Boyer's Political State, vol. lix. p. 195.)

1740.

"HOSIER'S GHOST."

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was extolled for doing with six ships what Hosier could not do with twenty, Hosier, in the same breath, was pitied and declared to have died of a broken heart, from the inactivity which his orders prescribed. Both these sentiments may be seen-worthless themselves, but precious from the splendid verse that inshrines them — in Glover's ballad at that period, "Hosier's Ghost"-the noblest song perhaps ever called forth by any British victory except Mr. Campbell's "Battle of the Baltic." In the same spirit did the Opposition within the House of Commons insist on inserting in their Address of congratulation the obnoxious words "with six ships of war only," and this amendment they carried in a thin House, by 36 against 31. By such insinuations and devices was a general enthusiasm raised amongst the people. We are assured that no Roman Consul, after reducing a province, ever received more lavish marks of public applause than were now showered upon Vernon.* His name became proverbial for courage; his head was a favourite sign; his birth-day was celebrated with bonfires and rejoicings.† The Opposition which chaunted his praise in public were no less careful to keep up a private correspondence with him. They inflamed his natural vanity and arrogance, represented Walpole as envious of his fame, and prepared him to consider any future coadjutor as a secret enemy.

On the other hand the Ministers, anxious to pursue his success, had determined to send him a large reinforcement both of ships and soldiers. Their armament was nearly ready, when they received intelligence that a Spanish fleet was putting out to sea; and that a French one was about to sail from Brest, its destination believed to be the West Indies, and its design hostile. It became expedient, therefore, greatly to increase the expedition from England, so as to render it adequate to all emergencies; but this could not be effected without some delay. "I need not tell you," writes Sir Charles Wager

*Tindal's Hist. vol. viii. p. 456.

"It is Admiral Vernon's birth-day, and the city shops are full of "favours, the streets of marrowbones and cleavers, and the night will "be full of mobbing, bonfires, and lights." Horace Walpole to Sir H. Mann, November 12. 1741

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to Admiral Vernon, " how much time it necessarily takes up to prepare and victual so large a squadron for a voyage to the West Indies, nor how difficult it very "often is to get them out of the Channel, when they are 66 ready to sail, as this year we have experienced; and I "thought it would not be amiss for both French and Spaniards to be a month or two in the West Indies be"fore us, provided the treasure was not ready to embark "in that time; that they might be half dead and half "roasted before our fleet arrived, as I doubt not but "it has happened to them; and the Government here, laying an embargo upon all provisions in Ireland, "where the French had 14 ships loading provisions for "the West Indies, has no doubt been a great disappoint"ment to them."* The Opposition, however, took care to exclaim against the delay, as though proceeding from the basest motives, and expressed strong doubts whether the expedition would ever really sail.†

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The expedition nevertheless did begin its voyage at the end of October 1740, the troops commanded by Lord Cathcart, and the fleet by Sir Chaloner Ogle. When joined with Vernon at Jamaica, it formed by far the most powerful armament ever yet seen in those seas, amounting to no less than 115 ships, above 30 of these of the line, with 15,000 sailors, and 12,000 land forces on board. Vernon, who meanwhile had taken and demolished the small fort of Chagre, was acknowledged as chief Admiral, while the command of the troops (Lord Cathcart dying from the effects of the climate) devolved on General Wentworth. The precise object of these formidable preparations had not been fixed and prescribed in England; some had suggested the Havana, others Carthagena, and the decision was at length referred to a Council of War, to be held in the West Indies. In this, the impetuous wishes of Vernon, ever prone to dictate rather than consult, prevailed in favour of an attack on Carthagena. Nay, so thoroughly was he bent upon this

*To Admiral Vernon, February 4. 1741.

"I have not the least notion that our expedition under Lord "Cathcart is intended to be sent any where." Pulteney to Swift, June 3. 1740. Swift's Works, vol. xix. p. 322.

1741.

ATTACK ON CARTHAGENA.

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enterprise, that he had already announced the intention in a letter to the French governor of St. Domingo * a singular imprudence, which served to give the Spaniards timely notice, and stirred them to more active measures for defence.

Carthagena, then the best fortified and strongest place in Spanish America, stands upon a sandbank nearly surrounded by the sea or salt pools. A tongue of land, beginning at the city, and running out at some distance across a bay, incloses a harbour both spacious and secure. To this harbour there was then only one entrance, so narrow as to deserve the name of Boca Chica (Small Mouth): a boom had been drawn across it, and it was defended by several forts and batteries. Within the harbour, on a peninsula jutting out from the tongue of land, and thus covering the city, was built another large fort called Castillo Grande, and here the channel was almost impassable, being choked by ships sunk in order to prevent the approach of the British fleet. The ramparts of Carthagena itself had been newly repaired and mounted by no less than 300 pieces of cannon; its garrison could muster 4,000 good soldiers; and its Viceroy, Don Sebastian de Eslava, was an officer of skill and spirit, whose mind, nourished with Greek and Roman story, had long panted for some opportunity to emulate their heroic deeds ‡, and who-if he needed any meaner motive for exertion-might reflect that the Governor of Porto Bello had been sent to Spain and brought to trial for the surrender of that place.§

Such were the preparations for defence at Carthagena when the British squadron appeared before it on the 4th of March, 1741. The first step of the officers on board

* Tindal's Hist. vol. viii. p. 466. Campo Raso also says of the expedition, "de cuyo suceso estaba Inglaterra tan segura, que no se "recelo de publicarla ocho meses antes de que se executase; lo que no dexo de contribuir en parte al malogro de ella." (Comentarios, vol. iv. p. 163.)

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† See a description and two plans of Carthagena in Juan and Ulloa, Voyage d'Amérique, vol. i. p. 20–26. ed. 1752.

Coxe's Bourbon Kings of Spain, vol. iii. p. 325.

§ Boyer's Polit. State, vol. lix. p. 404. This useful compilation