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The second letter of the same date, January 10, 1780, approved Mayorga's request to Havana for more ships, and stated that the Havana Commandant of Marine had been ordered to send ships to Veracruz at more frequent intervals than the monthly mail boats. No vessel was to return empty from Veracruz.¹⁶

The quarrel about shipping between the Viceroy and the officials of Havana continued to reverberate long after the immediate emergency of autumn, 1779, had passed. While Mayorga had been attempting to find ships to move cargo to Cuba, the Intendant of the Army in Havana, Juan Ignazio Utriza, had addressed complaints to Madrid and had alleged that the island could not long maintain its armed forces nor even survive unless New Spain delivered money and food. Through José de Gálvez the king tried to soothe both parties. The Intendant of the Army in Havana was told that the demands upon New Spain were great, because the Viceroyalty was the sole source of money for all Spanish North America, and that Havana should avoid making excessive requests and should practice economy. On the other hand, the Viceroy was urged to realize that Havana was the most important military post in America and that its needs must be given preferential treatment.¹⁷

On the Pacific coast of New Spain, as on the Atlantic coast, the initial demands of the war had created a shortage of shipping. To send two ships to the Philippine Islands with emergency aid had required an extraordinary effort.¹⁸ At Acapulco the annual ship was loading and preparing to receive 400 soldiers being sent to reinforce the Manila garrison in compliance with a royal order of January 1780. The mixed body of infantry and dragoons had been drawn from all the veteran infantry regiments then in New Spain: those of Granada, Asturias, the Crown, and from the Dragoons of Mexico and Spain. By March 1, 1780, the troops were en route to Acapulco. All the men had received two months' pay, and their heavy Spanish army uniforms had been left in storage in Mexico City. The troops wore instead light, loose linen trousers and jackets which Mayorga had ordered made for them because of the heat of their new station. The infantry carried with them an issue of ninety-six sabres, not the normal weapons of foot soldiers, to be used to repel boarders if their ship were attacked.¹⁹ A ship had been transferred from San Bias to escort the Manila ship, for José de Gálvez had warned that the English squadron of Admiral Edward Hughes might be in the Pacific Ocean on its way to attack the galleon, the Philippines, or the coasts of New Spain and Peru.²⁰

The Viceroy could do no more than warn the officers commanding on the west coast of the possibility of an English attack. After two vessels had been sent to the Philippines and another detached to escort the galleon, there were no more ships of the Real Armada in service on the Pacific coast. In San Blas there was only one un-seaworthy ship, in such bad condition that she had been careened and was undergoing a major overhaul. Since he lacked means of carrying provisions to the missions and presidios of the Californias, the Viceroy commandeered a privately-owned Peruvian merchantman which had sailed from Guayaquil to Acapulco with a cargo of cacao. The Peruvian was ordered to San Bias in March 1780, and there she received the crew and the armament of the unserviceable royal ship,²¹

The problems of the west coast had been resolved for the time being, but an emergency had arisen in the Captaincy General of Guatemala. In February the English had landed, 500 strong, at the mouth of the San Juan River in Nicaragua in an attempt to establish a chain of forts across the Central American isthmus from ocean to ocean. The Spanish were not unduly alarmed, however, for, due to grave errors in logistics, the invaders could not begin the ascent of the river toward their first objective, Lake Nicaragua, until April. Ignorance of the area, its terrain, the climate, and disease, worked to frustrate their effort. The little army required almost a month to struggle the hundred miles upstream to Fort San Juan, which guarded the eastern end of the lake. Even though the English and ,their Indian and zambo allies had not yet come into contact with any Spanish armed forces, their leaders realized that their force was already spent.²²

Of more immediate importance to the Viceroy were the unceasing needs of the military and naval establishments of Cuba, the expedition of Governor Bernardo de Gálvez against Mobile and Pensacola, and the preparations for the arrival of the fleet from Spain with its thousands of mouths to feed. In March 1780 the Viceroy represented himself to José de Gálvez as waiting in Mexico City alert for calls for aid from any quarter. From the beginning of the war, he wrote, he had kept constantly in mind the disastrous outcome of the last war with the English, and the mistakes of the past would not be repeated if the resources of New Spain could prevent it, for "more than three quarters of its revenues are now spent for assistance to foreign points, and within the Kingdom funds have been spent only for the most indispensable needs.²³

The behavior of the Governor General of Cuba, the Intendant of the Army, and the Commandant of Marine continued to provoke the anger of Mayorga, and in the spring of 1780 Bernardo de Gálvez, José de Gálvez, and the King joined him in condemnation of the Havana officials.

The Governor of Louisiana ran afoul of the obstructionist attitude of Havana as soon as he began preparations for his descent upon Mobile and Pensacola. The forces with which he had taken the English posts on the Mississippi River were inadequate for the siege of fortifications like those of Mobile and Pensacola, and aid from Havana. Yet help was slow in coming; and Navarro, the Governor, was reluctant to release soldiers to reinforce Gálvez. Twice he attempted to substitute alternative plans for the projected sea-borne attack on the two enemy forts. He first maintained that Pensacola would capitulate after a naval bombardment, and that no troops at all would be needed. Mobile would fall automatically without having been invested. The strenuous objection of the young Governor, who knew the power of the batteries which defended the bay of Pensacola, then caused Navarro to recommend that land forces alone besiege both Mobile and Pensacola. Both forts, he claimed, would surrender without bloodshed on either side. In any case Cuba could not spare the 7,000 men called for in Gálvez', plan. Half that number would be enough.²⁴

Despairing of immediate aid from Cuba, Gálvez sent a trusted subordinate to plead with the captain general; and on January 2, 1780, he sailed from New Orleans with 754 men traveling in twelve small vessels. On February 24th, after he had already entered Mobile Bay, 567 soldiers from Havana joined him.²⁵

While Gálvez made ready to besiege Mobile, the Viceroy of New Spain wrote the Minister of the Indies to complain that he had been completely excluded from the planning of the expedition. The royal order of August 29, 1779, which had given general directives for the project, had expressly provided that the commanders of the land and sea forces in Havana act in concert with the Governor of Louisiana and the Viceroy of New Spain, and that movements of ships and men be coordinated in order to avoid delays. Identical copies of the order had been sent to Havana and to Mexico City. Yet when Mayorga received the order on January 26, 1780, via Havana, it had been accompanied by a letter from Governor Navarro whose substance was directly contradictory to the orders from Spain.

Navarro asserted that it was inconvenient for him and his naval commander, Juan Bautista Bonet, to coordinate their planning with Mayorga and Bernardo de Gálvez, for the uncertainties of sea communication would delay the execution of the enterprise. The governor then informed the Viceroy of what had been planned in Havana and what Havana expected of New Spain. Bernardo de Gálvez was to begin operations at Mobile, and he would be supplied from Havana. The Viceroy was to send a fully equipped veteran regiment to Veracruz at once; and there it must wait until ships came from Havana to transport it to Cuba, where it would be employed as the Governor and the Naval Commandant saw fit.

Then by a private vessel which arrived at Veracruz on February 21, Mayorga received another letter from Novarro, dated February 7th. He was told that Gálvez was enroute to Mobile, and that reinforcements were moving to him from Havana. Chartered ships would shortly call at Veracruz to load the regiment supposedly waiting in that port, together with the munitions and stores which were to accompany it. The Viceroy could not comply with this order, and he explained his refusal to Jose de Gálvez.

Bernardo de Gálvez had to attack Mobile with no troops from Mexico and with only 567 men from Havana. The fort capitulated after a short siege, and the Spaniards took formal possession on March 14th. An English relief column of 1,000 men from Pensacola had almost reached Mobile when its commander heard of the surrender and retreated hurriedly. Gálvez, who had only 1,400 men at his disposal to hold Mobile, to guard his 300 English prisoners, and to confront the relief expedition, was forced to allow the enemy to fall back on Pensacola unmolested. He expressed his regret to his uncle, José de Gálvez, as follows:

Ever since he had assumed office Mayorga had complained to Spain concerning the excessive demands and the inactivity of those who commanded at Havana. Before and during the expedition against Mobile, Bernardo de Gálvez had added his voice to that of the Viceroy, and their combined accusations provoked a strong letter from José de Gálvez which promised changes for the better. On April 22, 1780, the Minister of the Indies wrote of his intentions to the Viceroy.

If Bernardo de Gálvez and Viceroy Mayorga had expected an immediate change of command in Cuba as a consequence of this letter, they were disappointed. Bonet was not relieved of his command until after the great convoy arrived from Spain in October, because his replacement was to be Josef Solano, commander of the convoy.³⁰ While Bonet held office he continued to hamper Bernardo de Gálvez' efforts to follow the conquest of Mobile by a swift descent upon Pensacola before that post might be reinforced from Jamaica. On February 15th and again on March 7th expeditions sailed from Havana against Pensacola only to turn back without having accomplished anything. On the first occasion the captains were deterred by news that Pensacola had received strong reinforcements from Jamaica. On the second approach, they decided that the entrance to the bay was impassable. because of shoal water. Both suppositions were false.

In April, 1780, Bernardo de Gálvez made another attempt to persuade Havana that the forces available at that time were capable of taking Pensacola, but he failed, for the authorities had decided to await the reinforcements to be brought to America by the convoy.3° In May Gálvez had no choice but to return his troops to Havana and New Orleans and to leave a garrison at Mobile.

The English prisoners taken during Gálvez' campaign were sent to Veracruz, and in May José de Gálvez requested a complete list of these prisoners and their ranks, for at the time Madrid and London were in the process of arranging an exchange.³¹ But the Viceroy had already rid New Spain of the forty officers and three hundred thirty enlisted men whom Bernardo de Gálvez had sent to his kingdom. Mayorga stated that he understood why the Governor of Louisiana had promptly removed the prisoners from West Florida, for Mobile, immediately after its capture, had been threatened by the advance of an enemy force from Pensacola, and to detach men to guard the prisoners would have further weakened Gálvez' already small army.

Yet there were, according to the Viceroy, good reasons for not allowing the prisoners to remain in New Spain. Veteran troops would be needed to guard them, men who might be needed to repel an English attack. The only secure place of confinement was the fort of San Juan de Ulúa, where they would be able to learn the state of the Spanish defenses. Under pretext of a parley or an exchange of prisoners English warships would enter the port and study its facilities. At the advice of Inspector General Pascual de Cisneros³² and the vote of the Real Acuerdo, the Viceroy decided to send the English to Havana. Private vessels found at Veracruz were commandeered for the purpose, and on August 26 the prisoners left Veracruz for Cuba.³³

The expedition against Pensacola remained the principal concern of the Viceroy after the capture of Mobile. The Manila galleon and its escorting vessel sailed from Acapulco on March 15th, bearing 618,881 pesos;³⁴ and Guatemala was assured of continued aid from New Spain;35 but the volume of correspondence concerned with the flow of aid to Havana and Louisiana is indicative of official preoccupation with affairs in that area. Relations between the Viceroy and Havana continued bad, and Mayorga's gratuitous comments on the conduct of the war in the West Indies and in West Florida make it obvious that he held Havana in general and Juan Bautista Bonet in particular personally responsible for every mishap.

In February 1780 the Viceroy went back six months in time to call to the attention of José de Gálvez a royal order of August 29, 1779, and to file a belated complaint against Havana's extravagant demands for gunpowder. At that time New Spain had been directed to send 2,000 quintales (100 tons) to Havana, part of which was to be sent to Cartagena de Indies.³⁵ Mayorga wanted to know what had happened to "the immense [but unspecified] quantities" which had been sent. New Spain had only been able to send such an unprecedented quantity at the cost of reducing the magazines at Veracruz to a dangerously low level; and the new fort at Perote, which guarded the road to Mexico City, now had only 300 of the 1,500 quintales which regulations prescribed. A new powder factory was under construction, and it would supplement the old factory at Chapultepec,³⁷ but the combined production of the two establishments would not be sufficient to satisfy Havana if that port continued to ask for powder at the present rate.³⁸

After the two ineffectual sallies by the Havana squadron against Pensacola in February and March of 1780, the Viceroy returned to the attack. In a letter of José de Gálvez concerning the shipment of food to New Orleans he made the following comment:

By the same post the Viceroy sent to Bonet a copy of the royal order requiring that all monies be shipped in vessels of the Real Armada, and stressed the need to comply with it.⁴⁰ Only six days later, with tireless redundancy, he repeated to José de Gálvez the whole account of having been forced to charter merchant ships to supply Havana, while regretting the necessity of doing so.⁴¹

Whether or not Mayorga was justified in assigning the blame to Bonet, Gálvez' offensive in West Florida was halted until the arrival of the convoy, and these reinforcements from Spain also affected the course of British sea action in the West Indies. Admiral George Rodney spent the spring fighting a series of indecisive actions with the French Admiral de Guichen in the Leeward Islands. Near the end of May he learned that twelve Spanish ships of the line and numerous lesser vessels had sailed from Cadiz a month earlier. To allow the French and Spanish fleets to join forces would be to lose command of the sea and to place his eighteen ships in opposition to an Allied fleet of twenty-seven. Rodney attempted simultaneously to hold de Guichen in port at Martinique and to intercept the Spaniards. He failed in both instances. Solano sighted the English fleet without being seen, passed to the north, and evaded the squadron. Meanwhile, de Guichen's ships sailed unmolested from Martinique to join Solano at the French island of Guadeloupe on June 9th. The British stopped all their convoys, and Rodney prepared to meet an enemy descent upon the British-held islands.⁴²

Only in Nicaragua was there any offensive activity by the enemy in the spring and summer of 1780. The small English expedition, which had begun the ascent of the San Juan River toward Lake Nicaragua, had caused little con cern to Matías de Gálvez. He wrote to Mexico City that shipments of money and supplies from New Spain could be suspended for the time being, for they were not needed.⁴³ But the English and their zambo allies, although they lost men daily from fever, sunstroke, snakebite, and desertion, dragged heavy artillery more than one hundred miles from the coast to the fort of San Juan thirty miles from the lake. They began a siege on April 13th, and six days later the garrison capitulated for lack of water.⁴⁴

Matías de Gálvez soon called for help. On April 21 he asked Mexico City for 100,000 pesos and one hundred quintales of powder to be sent to Realejo as soon as possible. By the time his letter reached the capital, the Viceroy had heard from other sources that the fort of San Juan was under siege. Feeling that Realejo was too close to the scene of combat, he directed that the money and powder be sent instead to Sonsonate. He added one hundred quintales, of potassium nitrate to the shipment, and expressed the hope that Guatemala could begin the manufacture of explosives for its own use.⁴⁵

It was not necessary to expel the English from Nicaragua by force. By the time the Viceroy ordered a ship from Acapulco to carry supplies to Sonsonate, sickness had reduced the numbers of the invaders to the point that there were not enough able-bodied men for camp duty.⁴⁶ 6 The Governor of Jamaica continued to send useless reinforcements, and altogether 1,400 men were sent to Nicaragua, but by September there were only 320 men fit for action. Colonel Kemble, the English commander, hoped at least to maintain a beachhead on the coast from which to renew the advance later; but this proved to be impossible. Troops from England which had been intended for use in Nicaragua were held up in Jamaica by fever, scurvy, and the threat of imminent invasion by the combined fleets of Solano and de Guichen.⁴⁷

The Minister of the Indies had never doubted that the English would fail, although he deplored their ability to land on the mainland at will. As he wrote to Mayorga:

Gálvez continued his letter with instructions for driving out the English, but even as he wrote the enemy survivors were in retreat toward the coast after having evacuated the fort. In November, before the minister's letter reached Mexico, the last of the English had evacuated Nicaragua and had returned to Jamaica.⁴⁹

Poor communications, the result of distance and wretched roads, impeded the Viceroy's appreciation of what was currently occurring in the Captaincy General of Guatemala, and the same factors limited his grasp on affairs within his own domain. The press of business in the capital made it impossible for him to travel extensively, and the execution of orders depended upon the ability and zeal of his subordinates. This was particularly true of the administration of affairs at Veracruz, which combined the functions of principal port' and the largest single defense installation. Unlike his predecessor, Bucareli, who had entered New Spain through Veracruz and had at that time inspected its defenses, Mayorga had never seen the port, for he had come directly to the capital from Guatemala. In the summer of 1780 something prompted Mayorga to visit the port. The explanation of his trip of inspection, as given to José de Gálvez, reveals that he did not trust the officers at Veracruz, although his letter did not state specific reasons for his suspicions:

The Viceroy left Mexico City on July 3rd, and wishing to make his absence from the capital as brief as possible, he entrusted the inspection of the coast adjacent to Veracruz to Matías de Armona, Lieutenant Colonel of the Regiment of the Crown. The Governor was ordered to muster the entire garrison and all the presidiarios of San Juan de Ulúa as soon as the Viceroy arrived.⁵¹ All ammunition magazines and food storehouses were thrown open for inspection. At this time the Commandant of Artillery of the fort, Miguel Puchalt, complained to the Viceroy that the magazines contained only one-half the quantity of gunpowder they were capable of holding. The Governor answered the criticism of Puchalt by asserting that the magazines could never be kept charged to capacity because of the frequent shipments of explosive to other ports. Unfortunately, due to the brief time available and the fact that the necessary records were scattered and not immediately at hand, it was impossible for the Viceroy to trace the movements of war materiel through Veracruz. It was only possible to inventory what was actually on hand: 4,569 quintales of gunpowder and 50,000 musket cartridges. A new storehouse capable of holding 800 quintales was under construction. If the new storehouse were kept filled, and if the fort's magazines were maintained at their current level, Mayorga felt that the supply would be adequate.⁵²

The two companies of artillerymen who served the guns of the fort had been quartered within the city itself prior to the coming of the viceroy. Acting upon the principle that their duty was to defend the fort and to remain close to their pieces at all times, he ordered them quartered within the fort itself, thereby saving the crown

one thousand pesos monthly. Each week the gunners were to come to the city in small detachments to be trained in a school of practical gun handling. The presidiarios of the fort and picked members of the urban militia were to join the training sessions, so that in an emergency they might aid the regulars in serving the guns.⁵³

Mayorga found that two companies of urban militia were quartered in the city of Veracruz, and he ordered them moved to the outskirts of town where they could be housed more economically. From their new stations they could be quickly deployed to meet a threat from any direction.⁵⁴

While the Viceroy was still in Veracruz he was joined by Lieutenant Colonel Matías de Armona who had been sent to inspect militia units north and south of the port. Armona returned with the recommendation that no more coastal defense batteries be constructed. They would be useless against a landing force, which could shift its operations to one of the many undefended beaches. He urged, instead, the erection of watch towers equipped with rockets and signal flags from which likely invasion beaches could be kept under observation.⁵⁵

Expressing himself satisfied with his inspection, Mayorga returned to the capital on July 30, only a few days before Solano's long-awaited convoy made port at Havana bearing 12,000 troops. This was the force which was to aid the expedition against Pensacola and which the English feared would invade Jamaica, but at the time of their arrival both the troops and the seamen were unfit for action. Yellow fever had broken out in the Spanish fleet, and when Solano joined de Guichen the fever spread to the French ships. Far from attacking Jamaica, the allies soon had to divide their forces by segregating the sick on certain vessels. The Spanish fleet was so enfeebled that Solano asked the protection of de Guichen while he completed the last leg of his voyage through the islands to Cuba. The plague-stricken ships sailed slowly northward discharging sick at Dominica, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Puerto Rico, and Santo Domingo. After the Spaniards anchored at Havana on August 3rd, de Guichen sailed for Europe, escorting French merchantmen from the islands.⁵⁶

Governor Bernardo de Gálvez, promoted to the rank of Mariscal de Campo, had come to Havana the day before the fleet from Spain made port; and he spent several weeks in conference with the military and naval commanders of that port. On August 11th a junta decided that 3,800 men should sail for the attempt on Pensacola under the Governor's command, and on October 16th a squadron of seven ships of the line and fifty-seven lesser vessels left Havana bearing 3,829 troops.⁵⁷ Two days after their departure a hurricane struck the expedition. For six days the storm drove the ships westward, dispersing them to Mobile Bay, the mouth of the Mississippi and the coast of Campeche. Only one vessel was gunk, but after a month and a half spent in a vain effort to reunite the fleet, Gálvez had to return to Havana still now knowing the location of half his ships.⁵⁸

When news reached Mexico City that crippled ships from Gálvez' expedition had been driven ashore in Campeche, the Viceroy sent a courier to Veracruz with orders that two ships should sail at once with 50,000 pesos and supplies for their relief, and by letter he urged the masters of Gálvez' ships to make their crafts seaworthy and to rejoin their commander in the shortest possible time.⁵⁹ This was the second time within a month that New Spain had been asked to relieve storm damages. On the day Bernardo de Gálvez had sailed from Havana he had written to Mexico asking immediate aid for Louisiana, whose crops had been destroyed by a recent storm. On November 8th, the same day that the request had been received, it had been answered by diverting in two ships some of the provisions Which had been collected for Havana, although Mayorga assured José de Gálvez that the emergency aid given to Louisiana would not interfere with transportation of food to Cuba.⁶⁰

The notice of the dispersal of Bernardo de Gálvez' fleet and the destruction of crops in Louisiana had been accompanied by a warning from Havana whose substance was that the English forces of Jamaica had been reinforced and that another invasion would shortly move to join the small army already in Nicaragua. One of the ships lying disabled on the coast of Campeche was an aviso from Havana which had been bound for Guatemala carrying a similar warning to Matías de Gálvez. Mayorga at once sent a courier to the Captain-General with a copy of the letter he had received from Havana. The simultaneous arrival of so much bad news caused the Viceroy to write to José de Gálvez that "the eighth day of the current month (November) was one of the most bitter I have had in my life.^{" 61}

The violent weather of the Gulf of Mexico was a contrast to that of the Pacific Ocean. The galleon from Manila made port at Acapulco without incident on October 27th. On her last voyage the ship had spent the period from November 25, 1779, to May 26th in harbor. The Viceroy felt that shortening her stay in America would reduce the danger of the vessel's being intercepted by an enemy, therefore, he tentatively ordered that the sailing date for the return voyage be set for January 15, 1781.

Of greater concern to the viceroy than the fate of Gálvez' fleet or the Manila galleon was the formation of a rich convoy for Havana and Cádiz. With Solano's fleet from Spain had come a shipment of mercury, indispensable for the refinement of Mexican silver. The azoques and three escorting warships had reached Veracruz on September 23rd, and the eastbound convoy was to have sailed on November 1st, but the same winds which had scattered Gálvez', ships had delayed the discharging and loading of the ships at Veracruz. The date of departure was reset for November 20th.

As usual, the most valuable items were divided among the most heavily armed ships. On this occasion the cargo capacity of the three warships was insufficient to accommodate the most precious freight: silver, cochineal, and indigo. Three merchant ships, considered the most seaworthy and the best-armed of those in port at Veracruz,were selected to share the responsibility of carrying the premium goods. Although the goods of private merchants were to travel in the convoy of 58 ships, the principal concern was the safe conduct of 6,680,647 pesos destined for the royal service. Three million of this sum was bound for Spain; it was money collected by the royal tobacco monopoly. One million four hundred one thousand six hundred and seven pesos were to go to Havana for the maintenance of the garrisons of Cuba, the expenses of the Havana squadron and the purchase of tobacco for the crown monopoly.⁶² Havana was also to receive 1,382,396 pesos for the payment of situados to the Windward Islands. There was a separate allotment of 796,444 pesos for the maintenance from June to December of the warships which had recently come from Spain. One hundred thousand pesos were to be paid to the royal treasuries of Havana to reimburse them for an emergency draft for that sum made by Matías de Gálvez in the first months of his service in Guatemala.

No one in Veracruz knew the state of affairs at Havana; it was feared that the hurricane which had wrecked Gálvez' enterprise might have damaged or dispersed the entire squadron based on Havana. Therefore, the Viceroy ordered three small craft to precede the convoy with two-day intervals between their sailings, so that Havana might be prepared to receive and to protect the treasure ships.

In Spain the King and his Ministers remained in ignorance of all that had occurred in the West Indies since February 26th, the date on which the last post had left Havana. Unaware of the circumstances which had frustrated his nephew's attack on Pensacola, José de Gálvez assumed that the British post had already fallen or would soon do so. On October 19, 1780, he wrote a letter to the Governor of Havana in which he outlined the course of action to be followed in the American theatre, and a copy of this letter was sent to Viceroy Mayorga.⁶⁴

The minister wrote that a French fleet of at least twenty ships of the line carrying 3,000 troops would arrive in Martinique in January or February of the coming year. The new arrivals, when joined by the nine ships and 2,000 men already in the French West Indies, would be superior in strength to the English land and sea forces, and an offensive move on the part of the latter would be impossible. Unless Admiral Rodney's strength should be considerably reinforced—and Gálvez regarded this as unlikely—the combined forces of the Bourbon allies could successfully invade Jamaica⁶⁵ as Gálvez believed that Rodney would be forced to divide his fleet in order to aid General Clinton in New York, because another French fleet under de Ternay was en route to North America, "superior to that which the enemy have in New York, and to circumscribe within very narrow limits the forces of General Clinton.⁶⁶

Gálvez hoped that the junta of Generals at Havana had already resolved to send an expedition against Pensacola. Optimistically, he expressed the hopes of the King in the future perfect tense:

Proceeding on the assumption that the conquest of West Florida had been accomplished by the time he wrote, the Minister of the Indies directed that ten ships of the line were to be secretly made ready for sea at Havana. When word should come that the French fleet had arrived in the West Indies, all the troops which could be safely withdrawn from Cuba were to be embarked on the ships with six months' rations. Elaborate precautions were to be taken to conceal the destination of the Spanish force, and rumor was to be circulated that it was to sail for Spain. An embargo was to be laid on all shipping from Cuban ports, and all travel by road was to be forbidden until the eastbound ships had cleared the Old Bahama Channel, a narrow and difficult passage off the north coast of Cuba. Once the squadron had shaped a course toward the south to join the French, normal land and sea traffic would be resumed. The Spanish were to meet the French at Cap François, in French Santo Domingo, and picket ships would be sent out to observe the activities of the British at Jamaica.

Perhaps José de Gálvez feared that the Spanish ships would not sail, as ordered, with six months' rations aboard or that the attack on Jamaica would be delayed. The Governor of Santo Domingo was ordered to supply the fleet with whatever food he could collect, and the Dutch of St. Eustatius and the Danes of St. Croix and St. Thomas were confidentially asked to help supply the needs of the seamen and troops.⁶⁸

The whole enterprise was contingent upon the arrival of the fleet from France, but it did not sail at the time predicted by Gálvez and recommended by Floridablanca. Count de Grasse did not sail for Martinique until March 22, 1781, with twenty ships of the line; and he bore no definite orders to attack Jamaica, but to act as circumstances dictated.⁶⁹ In spite of the fact that Havana was not required to reduce its land and sea forces to attack Jamaica, for the rest of the year its Junta de Generales showed little initiative in pressing the war against the English. For months Bernardo de Gálvez had urged the reinforcement of the garrison of Mobile, because he feared a counter-attack from Pensacola. His insistence finally caused Havana to dispatch two warships, two store-ships, four transports, and five hundred soldiers. The effort failed lamentably:

The year 1780 ended in anti-climax. Mobile had been captured, the land and sea forces of Havana had been reinforced and a valuable convoy had been sent to Spain. Yet numerous delays had prevented the taking of Pensacola, the French fleet had not yet arrived to join in an attack on Jamaica, and the English invaders of Nicaragua had been defeated by nature and problems of logistics rather than by Spanish arms.

The coming year, 1781, was to be the high point of the Bourbon military effort in America. The conquest of West Florida would be completed, and the British will to continue the war against their former colonies in North America would be broken by the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. To this victory of French and American arms, New Spain would make an unpublicized but important contribution.

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Footnotes to Chapter III

1. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, January 8, 1780, AGNM, RC, Vol. 118, expedients 5, fols. 7-7v. Arriaga had once refused Cruillas' request for a frigate to be stationed permanently at Veracruz and had advised him to maintain an offshore patrol which could warn shore defenses of the approach of suspicious craft. Chapter I, p. 11.

2. Same to same, January 3, 1780, ibid., expedienta 40, fol. 52. The Viceroy's answer is given in Mayorga to José de Gálvez, May 10, 1780, AGNM, CV, Vol. 126, No. 462, fols. 188-183v.

3. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, January 27, 1780, AGNM, RC, Vol. 118, expediente 65, fols. 93-97v. Gálvez was less than candid in his relation of the attempted invasion of England. In July, 1779, a force of 31,000 troops had been assembled in and around LeHavre and St. Malo to be transported to England by a combined force of more than one hundred French and Spanish ships. Poor staff work, bad weather and disease forced the allies to return to France in September after cruising aimlessly in the English Channel without ever having succeeded in landing troops or in engaging the English naval forces. Disease struck with such effect that the fleet was unable to remain at sea. Total casualties are unknown, but the French alone disembarked more than 12,000 sick at Brest, and "so many dead had been cast into the sea during the last days of the cruise that it was a month before the people of Cornwall and Devon would eat fish again." A. Temple Patterson, The Other Armada (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1960), pp. 2107.212.

4. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, January 13, 1780, AGNM, RC, Vol. 118, expediente 36, fol. 41.

5. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, February 17, 1780, AGNM, RC, Vol. 118, expediente 118, fols. 229-230v. The threat expressed in the last paragraph is an early example of the abuse which Mayorga suffered from the Minister of the Indies.

6. See Chapter I, p. 19.

7. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, February 24, 1780, AGNM, HC, Vol. 118, expediente 126, fols. 240-240v.

8. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, September 1, 1779, AGNM, RC, Vol. 117, expediente 139, fol. 270.

9. See pp. 58-59.

10. Mayorga's action in seeking advice from this official was undoubtedly taken to protect himself against any future challenge of the legality of his procedures. The Fiscal has been defined as a "sort of royal watchdog who defended the king's interests wherever they might appear." Haring, The Spanish Empire in America, p. 120n.

11. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, September 26, 1779, AGNM, CV, Vol. 123, No. 119, fols. 53-56. The minister approved the chartering of the ships, and stated in his reply that when the supplying of an important port was concerned, expense and the letter of the law could not be primary considerations. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, January 10, 1780, AGNM, RC, Vol. 118, expediente 26, fol. 35.

12. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, October 2, AGNM, CV, Vol. 123, No. 130, fols. 67-67v.

13. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, November 20, 1779, AGNM, CV, Vol. 124, No. 158, fols. 27-31v. The chartering of the additional ships was approved by the King. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, May 3, 1780, AGNM, RC, Vol. 119, expediente 27, fol. 31.

14. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, November 20, 1779, AGNM, CV, Vol. 124, No. 166, fols. 38-38v. These orders were approved by José de Gálvez; José de Gálvez to Mayorga, April 26, 1780, ibid., Vol. 118, expediente 172, fols. 317- 317v.

15. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, January 10, 1780, AGNM, RC, Vol. 118, expediente 24, fols. 31-31v.

16. Same to same, ibid., expediente 25, fol. 33.

17. Same to same, January 24, 1780, ibid., expediente 54, fols. 64-64v.

18. See pages 71ff.

19. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, March 4, 1780, AGNM, CV, Vol. 126, No. 420, fols. 144-145.20. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, February 18; 1780, AGNM, RC, Vol. 118, expediente 119, fols. 231-231v. Sir Edward Hughes had sailed for the East Indies in March, 1779, but reports reaching Spain had greatly exaggerated the strength of his squadron. In the Indian Ocean Hughes was for two years out-maneuvered and out-fought by Pierre Suffren de Saint Tropez, the greatest French seaman of the war. Hughes never reached the Pacific. William Laird Clowes, assisted by Sir Clements Markham, Captain A. T. Mahan, and H. W. Wilson, A History of the Royal Navy from the earliest Times to the Present,7 Vols. (Boston:, Little, Brown and Company, 1897-1903), Vol. 3, p. 543 [hereafter referred to as Clowes, Royal Navy].

21. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, March 3, 1780, AGNM, CV, Vol. 126, No. 410, fols. 126v-128.

22."The expedition was, like so many of the operations of the time, conducted without regard to climate, the season of the year, the experience of the troops or the health of those concerned in its execution. Warner, Nelson, p. 27. Lord George Germain, Secretary of State for the American Colonies, called the attempt "ill conceived and worse executed," and he blamed the greed of Governor Dalling of Jamaica for its failure. Mackesy, The War for America, p. 337.

23. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, March 5, 1780, AGNM, CV, Vol. 126, No. 425, fols. 151- 151v. Another paragraph of this letter stated that the kingdom was peaceful and prosperous. Aside from the necessary disruption of overseas commerce, all activities of New Spain continued the normal routine (el mismo giro).

24. When Navarro made a report of his actions to Spain, the King received it "con much disqusto," and ordered that more reinforcements be sent from Havana at once. Caughey, Gálvez, pp. 173-174.

25. Ibid., pp. 174-175.

26. 0nly compulsion could make men serve in a military unit stationed at Veracruz. The unhealthy conditions of the port was so feared by those who lived inland that Viceroy Bucareli had been forced to fill the vacancies in ranks at Veracruz with criminals, and he had suggested to judges that they keep the needs of Veracruz in mind when sentencing felons. Bobb, Bucareli, pp. 105-106. In 1782 and 1783 Mayorga ordered the drafting of provincial militiamen to fill the ranks of the three veteran regiments stationed in New Spain. At once the Viceroy's secretary was deluged with letters from village priests, wives and employers begging for exemptions for their parishioners, husbands, and laborers. Nearly all the requests expressed fear that the drafted men would be transferred to Veracruz. Many militiamen fled their units and homes. The penalty for desertion from a provincial militia unit was increased in 1782. A captured deserter was forced to run a gauntlet of 200 men who wielded ramrods. After he recovered from this punishment, he was to serve six months in prison wearing grillos, heavy leg-irons which made walking almost impossible. Even this severe penalty did not reduce desertion. Carmen Velázques, El Estado de Guerra, pp. 128, 129, 134. Mayorga permanently stationed his veteran regiments at Jalapa, Córdoba, and Orizaba, towns far enough from the coast to be regarded as healthful. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, March 5, 1780, AGNM, CV, Vol. 126, No. 425, fols. 151-151v.

27. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, March 3, 1780, AGNM, CV, Vol. 126, No. 418, fols. 139-143.

28. Quoted in Caughey, Gálvez, p. 184.

29. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, April 22, 1780, AGNM, RC, Vol. 118, expediente 166, fols. 310-311.

30. Caughey Gálvez, pp. 188-189.

31. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, May 9, 1780, RC, Vol. 119, expediente 52, fol. 61. The two powers reached agreement on a man-for-man exchange in July, 1781. This was the only formal exchange agreement made during the war, but exchanges were in fact continually made. The English made special efforts to recover their men, for the Spaniards "had deplorable habits both as gaolers and goaled." Olive Anderson, The Establishment of British Supremacy at Sea and the Exchange of Prisoners of War, 1689-1783, The English Historical Review, No. CCXIV (January, 1960), pp, 79, 88. Yet conditions in all Spanish prisons could not have been uniformly bad. On January 4, 1781, John Laforey, Commissioner of the Navy at the Leeward Islands wrote to Admiral George Rodney: "The Star is to take from hence about 60 Spanish prisoners which General Burt ana myself think, will be a proper compliment to the Spanish Governor of Porto. Rico for his Humanity and Good Treatment to the crew of the Deal Castle which Lieutenant Gerard has reported to us, and as these prisoners are very sensible of our reciprocal Conduct towards them here it maybe the means of establishing a good intercourse in our future exchanges." Lord George Rodney, Letter-Books and Order-Book of George, Lord Rodney, Admiral of the White Squadron (hereafter referred to as Rodney, Letter-Books), 2 Volumes. (New York: The New York Historical Society, 1932–1933), vol. I pp. 132-133.

32. Pascual de Cisneros was Inspector General of the army of New Spain, in charge of the raising, instruction, discipline, and administration of all troops in the kingdom. Such inspectors were regularly assigned to units of the Spanish army, and their authority had definite geographical limits. The title "Inspector General" indicated a position, not a military rank. Cisneros had come to New Spain during the administration of Bucareli with the rank of Mariscal de Campo. McAlister, Reorganization of the Army of New Spain, p. 9n; Bobb, Bucareli, p. 91.

33. The Viceroy wrote that each enlisted man receive two reales and each officer one peso per day for their subsistence while in Veracruz, and that they were treated with the greatest urbanidad y atención. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, August 27, 1780, AGNM, CV, Vol. 127, No. 694, fols. 72-73v. The transfer of the prisoners to Havana was approved, in José de Gálvez to Mayorga, February 17, 1781, AGNM, RC, Vol. 120, expediente 38, vol. 71.

34. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, May 26, 1780, AGNM, CV, Vol. 126, No. 477, fols. 206-207.

35. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, February 7, 1780, ibid., No. 327, fols. 35v-36.

36. See Chapter II, p. 69. 37

37. See Chapter II, p. 76ff.

38. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, February 24, 1780, AGNM, CV, Vol. 126, No. 341, fols. 46v-47v.

39. Same to same, May 20, 1780, Ibid., No. 515, fols. 256-257v.

40. Same to same, May 26, 1780, ibid., No. 483, fols. 213-213v.

41. Same to same, June 1, 1780, ibid., No. 559, fols. 291-293.

42. Mackesy, The War for America, pp. 332-333. Rodney's failure to bring the enemy to a decisive battle caused protests from the planters, and all the British West Indies feared invasion. Indecisive operations of the type described above had made the islands a graveyard of military and naval reputations. Lord Charles Cornwallis, no stranger to misfortune, expressed, in 1796, the general distaste for service in the West Indies in a letter to Earl Spencer,. First Lord of the Admiralty, in terms which might have been used by officers in previous wars:

Quoted in H. W. Richmond, The Navy in the War of 1739-1748, 3 Vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1920), Vol. III, p. 77.

43. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, May 8, 1780, AGNM, CV, Vol. 126, No. 461, 187-188.

44. Fortescue, British Army, Vol. 3, p. 345. The captured garrison of the fort sailed under cartel in a small English vessel for Santiago de Cuba. The craft foundered in a hurricane; the English crew, four Spanish officers, and three hundred two Spanish enlisted men died. The only prisoners who survived were one officer and four men who were too badly wounded to make the voyage. Fernandez Duro, Armada, Vol. 7, p. 284.

45. Mayorga to José de Gálvez,, May 26, 1780, AGNM, CV, Vol. 126, No. 479, fols. 209-210v. Realejo was only twenty miles northwest of Le6n, one of the expressed objectives of the English. Sonsonate, fifty miles west-south-west of the city of San Salvador, was more than one hundred miles farther up the coast. The ship used to transport these stores to Matías de Gálvez was Nuestra Senora de Balvanera, the Peruvian merchantman which had been chartered by Mayorga for such service.

48. Fortescue, British Army, Vol. 3, p. 346. Lieutenant Horatio Nelson had accompanied the expedition upriver, although he did not take part in the final operation against the fort of San Juan, for he was recalled to Jamaica to command a frigate. The order may have saved his life, for he was ill with fever at the time of his recall. When he returned to Jamaica, his illness caused him to resign his new command and to remain ashore for a year until the fever had runs its course. Warner, Nelson, p. 28.

47. Mackesy, The War for America, p. 336. The effects of contagious diseases and deficiencies must be considered in almost all studies of military or naval campaigns in the eighteenth century. Four thousand one hundred men had been sent from England to Jamaica in the spring of 1780, of whom 1,100 had died and 1,500 were ill. When they arrived at Jamaica they had been at sea for twenty weeks. Conditions aboard ships can be deduced from the following figures: during the four years 1776-1779, the British Navy lost 11243 men by enemy action and 18,541 by disease. In the same period, 42,069 men deserted. Clowes, The Royal Navy, Vol. III, p. 339.

48. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, October 15, 1780, AGNM, RC, Vol. 119, expediente 162, fols. 101-102v.

49. Mackesy, The War for America, p. 336. The author of a recent history of the administration of Matías de Gálvez in Guatemala asserts that the English did not voluntarily abandon the fort of San Juan, but were driven out by militiamen led by Gálvez. In this account the author criticizes other historians for not having mentioned this assault. He states that "several authentic documents of that period mention it," but he does not identify his sources. Menos Franco, Estudios Historicos, p. 72.

50. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, September 30, 1780, AGNM, CV, Vol. 127, No. 728, fols. 110-110v. In 1762 Cruillas had come from the capital to inspect the fortifications and troops on the Gulf coast, an action which had earned the approval of his superiors in Spain.

51. There is no one-word English equivalent to this term. A presidiario is a prisoner sentenced to labor within the confines of a garrison.

52. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, September 30, 1780, AGNM, CV, Vol. 127, No. 730, fols. 111v-113.

53. Same to same, September 30, 1780 ibid., 127, No. 729, fols. 111-111v.

54. Same to same, September 30, 1780, ibid., No. 734, fols. 120-120v. Another reason given for moving the militia out of town was that they molested the citizens of Veracruz.

55. Same to same, September 30, 1780, ibid., No. 735, fols. 121-121v.

56. Fernandez Duro, Armada, Vol. 7, p. 286. The Spanish convoy consisted of thirteen ships of the line, two frigates, and one hundred forty-seven merchantmen, with some of the last-named type being used as troop trans¬ports. The wastage of men through sickness was probably the result of carelessness, rather than ignorance or lack of resources, for the marine sanitary service in the principal ports of Spain was very good, and visiting French officers who made use of their facilities expressed admiration at the care given to the sick. On campaign, when the welfare of the men depended upon the care of seagoing officers, the situation was quite different. A French historian of the period has explained the epidemic sickness in Solano's convoy as follows:

George Desdevises du Dezert, Les institutions de l'Espagne au XVIIIe siècle: la marine, Revue Hispanique, LXX (1925), p. 490.

57. Caughey, Gálvez, pp. 192-193.

58. Bernardo de Gálvez, Diario de las operaciones de la expedicion contra la Plaza de Panzacola concluido pow las Armas de S. M. Catolico, baxo las ordenes del Mariscal de Campo D. Barnardo de Gálvez (apparently printed at Madrid c. 1781; facsimile reproduction of the first edition with foreword by N. Orwin Rush, Tallahassee, Florida: n.p.,1966), p. 1.

59. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, November 20, 1780, AGNM, CV, Vol. 127, No. 800, fols. 195-196v.

60. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, November 29, 1780, AGNM, CV, Vol. 127, No. 799, fols. 19417-195.

61. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, November 20, 1780, ibid., No. 837, fols. 231-233v. The warning of an impending English invasion of Nicaragua had no basis in fact.In November the English were in the process of withdrawing the remnants of their small army.

62. The manufacture and sale of tobacco were the most lucrative of all the royal monopolies. The effective organization of the monopoly had been accomplished during the visitation of José de Gálvez. In the early 1770's the annual revenue amounted to 1,500,000 pesos; in the course of two decades it rose to 4,500 pesos. Haring, The Spanish Empire in America, pp. 275-276.'

63. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, November 20, 1780, AGNM, CV, Vol. 127, No. 827, fols. 231-233v.

64. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, October 19, 1780, AGNM, RC, Vol. 120, expediente 21, mui reservada, fols. 32-39v. The length of this letter, sixteen pages, precludes its quotation in extenso in this paper, and its contents are summarized in the paragraphs Of the text which follow. Although José de Gálvez stated that he had received no definition or detailed news (noticias circunstanciadas) from Havana since February 26, he referred in this letter to the ineffectual attack made upon Pensacola in March. The squadron of Count de Guichen had sailed to Cadiz after leaving Havana in August, and it is likely that the minister had learned from this source of the failure to follow up Bernardo de Gálvez, victory at Mobile. Obviously no official explanation of the protracted delay had come from Havana.

65. Count Floridablanca proposed the joint expedition against Jamaica and outlined the details of its execution in a letter to Count Aranda, the Spanish Ambassador to the Court of France, dated September 5, 1780. Floridablanca asserted that the combined forces must be ready to move against the island by the first of the coming year, so that the operation could be carried out before the season of hurricanes and hot weather. Danvila, Carlos III, Vol. 5, p. 132.

66. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, October 19, 1780, AGNM, RC, Vol. 12, expediente 21, fol. 32v. Gálvez' forecast of Rodney's actions was correct. The English admiral was well aware of the epidemic disease raging in the French and Spanish fleets, and, he knew that the allies were incapable of taking the offensive. Therefore, when word came to him that six French ships and 2,000 troops had reached Newport, Rhode Island, on August 11th Rodney sailed for North America believing that no one knew of his departure. As he reported to Philip Stephens, Secretary of the Admiralty, on September 9th:

George, Lord Rodney, Letter-books and Order-book of George, Lord Rodney Admiral of the White Squadron 1780-1782,
2 Vols. (New York: The New York Historical Society, 1932- 1933), Vol. 1, pp. 9-10 thereafter referred to as Rodney, Letter-Book]. Rodney's dramatic sally to New York accomplished nothing. He quarreled with the North American commanders, never fought the French squadron, and sailed back to the West Indies on November 16, 1780, having "stripped the storehouses, impressed 400 seamen, and carried off two frigates on his departure. Muddle and friction were the result." Mackesy, The War for America, pp. 351-352.

67. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, October 19, 1780, AGNM, RC, Vol. 120, expediente 21, fol. 33.

68. Maritime trade between neutral nations and her enemies in the West Indies had been a problem for England since the War of the Spanish Succession. Richard Pares, War and Trade in the West Indies, Chapter VIII, The French Colonies and the Neutral Traders, pp. 326-390, passim. How the English dealt with the principal offenders, the Dutch, is described in the following chapter.

69. Mackesy, The War for America, p. 387.

70. Diario, p. 1.