1781: THE YEAR OF VICTORY After the capture of Mobile by Bernardo de Gálvez in March 1780, the English at Pensacola waited in expectation of an early attack. Unaware of Gálvez' failure to secure adequate support from Havana and of the dispersal of his invasion fleet by an October hurricane, General Campbell could only speculate as to why the Spaniards had not appeared. At first he was unable to believe his good fortune, but by the end of the year he had determined to counter-attack and to attempt the recovery of Mobile. At daybreak on January 7, 1781, three hundred English troops and an equal number of Indian allies fell upon an outpost of Mobile called the Village, which was located on the eastern shore of the bay. Although the garrison of 150 Spaniards were taken by surprise, they inflicted such heavy losses on the attackers that the English retreated toward Pensacola. The brief battle was of great aid to Bernardo de Gálvez in his continuing efforts to stir Havana to action, for the British attempt on Mobile made it obvious that more support would have to be sent to West Florida if what had been gained was to be retained.1 Although the English were negligent in not reinforcing Pensacola during the first months of 1781 while time remained to do so, in another area of America they took swift action to correct a practice which had caused them serious damage since 1776: the traffic of the neutral Dutch with the enemies of England. On January 5, 1781, Spain warned all her American colonies that England had declared war on Holland on December 21, 1780, and advised that all its subjects having commercial relations with the Dutch take the proper precautions.2 Before the letter was received, the principal supply depot for Dutch trade in the West Indies with England's enemies, the island of St. Eustatius, had fallen into the hands of Admiral George Rodney.3 The immediate consequence of the capture of the island was the abrupt stoppage of the flow of supplies to the United States and to the French and Spanish islands and the enrichment of Admiral Rodney and General Sir John Vaughn from the great quantities of merchandise seized on St. Eustatius. The second and more important consequence was that Rodney and Vaughn lingered at the island for three months taking inventory of their new riches and loading them into twenty-six vessels for shipment to England. The Admiralty in London feared that Rodney's preoccupation with his spoils would allow de Grasse's fleet to reach Martinique unchallenged. Rodney had been warned of the coming of the French in February; but instead of stationing his fleet to windward to intercept de Grasse, he employed his strength to guard the sailing of his loot-laden ships from St. Eustatius.4 The time which the English might have used to strengthen Pensacola was fast running out. The bulk of the naval forces was under Rodney's orders, while Admiral Peter Parker, in command of the Jamaica station, continued to ignore Sir Henry Clinton's appeals that he aid Pensacola. Unable to aid the port himself, Clinton afterward blamed Parker for its loss.5 It was only through subterfuge that Bernardo de Gálvez succeeded in persuading the Havana authorities to release troops for the conquest of Pensacola. They agreed to give him 1,315 men to reinforce Spanish defenses on the mainland, with the understanding that if he could withdraw enough men from New Orleans and Mobile, he would be permitted to attack Pensacola. Gálvez had no intention of sending the troops from Havana to the area of West Florida already under Spanish control. Having alerted New Orleans and Mobile to send all available forces on a march overland to join him, he sailed from Havana on February 27, 1781, with five ships and 1,315 men for Pensacola.6 Both land and sea forces were under the sole command of Bernardo de Gálvez during this operation, and Juan Bautista Bonet, Commandant of Marine at Havana, had directed the captains of the ships to obey the young Mariscal de Campo, Bonet's tenure. of command was drawing to a close, for both Bernardo de Gálvez and Mayorga had complained repeatedly to Spain of his lethargy and inaction. On February 12, 1781, José de Gálvez had ordered that he be relieved and that Gefe de Escuadra Josef Solano, who had commanded the August convoy from Spain, assume his duties.7 When the notice of Bonet's removal came from Spain, the Viceroy approved the change, and commented that "Solano has always shown me the same confidence which the King merits."8 By the same post which brought news of Bonet's dismissal came a rebuke to the Viceroy for not having sent sufficient aid to Matías de Gálvez and the Captaincy General of Guatemala. José de Gálvez, allegedly expressing the thought of the king, wrote that his Majesty could not understand why Mayorga had not sent troops from New Spain to aid Matías de Gálvez against the English who were ascending the San Juan River. He hoped that Mayorga had remedied that error since the last mail had arrived. Gálvez concluded by stating that troops should have been sent "because of Your Excellency's practical knowledge of the defenseless state of that Realm, since it was so at the departure of Your Excellency for New Spain.9 Before this letter there had been occasional notes of asperity in the communications which the Minister of the Indies had sent to Mexico, but there had never been an accusation that Mayorga had been derelict in his duty as Captain General. The last sentence could have been interpreted as an implication that Guatemala was in a "defenseless state" because Mayorga had left it in that condition. When the Minister of the Indies wrote his letter of complaint to New Spain he was unaware of the English withdrawal from Nicaragua and of his nephew's latest attempt to lay siege to Pensacola. Yet in spite of delays, frustrations and unexpected English attacks on the mainland, the principal objectives of Spain's war effort in America had remained substantially the same as they had been when they were first stated in 1779. Both the Governor of Havana and the Viceroy of New Spain received an account of these aims in February, 1781. The eleven-page document, divided into fifteen points of emphasis, recapitulated what had been planned previously: the expulsion of the English from West Florida and from the mainland of Central America, and the conquest of Jamaica. Two new directives had been added. Point five provided that once the English had been driven from Central America, the Mosquito Indians and the zambos, who had consistently aided the English, were to be completely exterminated, if possible.10 The tenth point named another objective:
While José de Gálvez planned beyond the conquest of Pensacola, Mayorga continued to accumulate stocks of food to meet the demands of Havana and Louisiana. He approached three large-scale producers of grain as possible sources of supply: the Provincial of the Augustinians in Michoacan, the Count of Regla12 and the Bishop of the Diocese of Michoacan. The Viceroy did not ask for donations of grain; he proposed to the three individuals that they sell the bulk of their crops to the crown and set their own prices. The three, all of whom possessed what the Viceroy referred to as opulentes haciendas, promised to sell him all the grain that could be spared. Their responses, wrote Mayorga, meant that henceforth grain could be sent to Havana and Louisiana in any quantity needed. But, as the Viceroy pointed out, in order to increase the flow of grain from Veracruz, more ships would have to be sent to that port from Havana. The ships currently engaged in traffic between the two ports could not even handle the food in storage in Veracruz and Puebla. The three vendors of grain to the Crown were far from being war profiteers, according to the Viceroy:
The public spirit of the three wheat-growers elicited the personal thanks of the King, which the Viceroy was told to convey to them. José de Gálvez warned Mayorga not to take advantage of their generosity, "for the King has ordered that the wheat offered be paid for in a just manner."14 The subsistence of the land and sea forces based in Cuba depended upon the resources of New Spain and its transportation through Veracruz. In the spring of 1781 the Viceroy became concerned about the safety of that port. Havana had sent a warning that an invasion force was gathering in Jamaica, although its destination was unknown. The imagined danger to the Gulf Coast caused Mayorga to break his repeated resolve not to expose his veteran troops to the dangers of the unhealthful littoral. In March he ordered one battalion of the Corona regiment and one squadron of the Dragoons of Spain to Veracruz. At the same time he published a bando ordering all Veracruz merchants to transfer their funds from the city to the interior. The merchants were also privately advised to send their families to places of safety away from the coast, but they were cautioned to accomplish their evacuation discretely so as not to create public alarm.15 The warning from Havana had no basis in fact. Reinforcements of ships and troops had arrived in Jamaica in January, but they were not destined for an attempt upon New Spain. In any case, the English in the West Indies had learned, in February, of Count de Grasse's expedition to America, and this potential threat had eliminated the possibility of action against the Spanish mainland.16 Before de Grasse had sailed, Madrid had taken steps to provide assistance to his fleet once it reached American waters; and the burden fell, inevitably, upon the treasuries of New Spain. New Spain had financed and supplied American, French, and Spanish operations on the mainland of North America and in the Gulf of Mexico. Although it is difficult to select from the many shipments from Mexico the one cargo most valuable to the common war against England, it is probably that this cargo was sent in response to the following order from José de Gálvez:
Mayorga received the order on July 11, 1781, and on the same day he sent the million pesos by forced marches to Veracruz to be carried to Havana by two warships which were in port at that time.18 By April, José de Gálvez had at last learned of the withdrawal of the English from Nicaragua five months before. Nevertheless, using the unfounded rumor of fresh enemy aggression as justification, he persisted in his attempt to force the Viceroy to send troops to Guatemala. An order to that effect was coupled with a categorical denial that Mayorga had ever aided Matías de Gálvez since the war began:19
This was the first of a series of four confidential letters addressed to New Spain within a few days, all of them critical of the Viceroy. José de Gálvez wrote to Pedro Antonio de Cosio, Administrador General de la Real Hacienda; and carefully explained that since Havana was a great center of military and naval operations, it required large and increasing amounts of supplies. Its customary sources of revenue had dwindled, for the war had paralyzed commerce. His Majesty demanded that the Intendant of the Army in Havana be sent everything which he requested. Gálvez concluded that his purpose in writing to Cosio was "the supposition that on this date and for your own motives you will communicate His Majesty's resolution to the Viceroy.21 On the same day, April 20, 1781, the Minister wrote to the Viceroy to inform him of the assistance which New Spain had to give to forthcoming operations in the West Indies. Once the conquest of Pensacola had been accomplished, the invasion of Jamaica must be undertaken. The expedition would require more men than those currently fit for duty in Havana, for the army had "suffered not a little during its ocean voyage," a reference to the scurvy and yellow fever that had ravaged Solano's convoy from Spain the previous summer. Not even the most audacious of the English planned an attack on the mainland of Spanish America (a direct and unexplained contradiction of his warning about a new attack on Nicaragua). Therefore, the Viceroy could have no reason for not releasing his veteran troops for service elsewhere. In any case, New Spain had enough resources for its own defense. Consequently, he declared:
Let
it be well understood that His Majesty will accept no excuse nor will
he pay attention to any reason or pretext which can act against or delay
in this matter compliance with His Sovereign Orders.22
By chance, the fault-finding letters from Madrid had just been written when Mayorga wrote a self-congratulatory account of New Spain's unexampled exports of money and food since the beginning of the war. He was proud, the Viceroy declared, of having sent Matías de Gálvez more aid than he had asked for. Even after the Captain General of Guatemala had advised Mexico City that he required no further assistance, Mayorga had sent him another shipment, and Gálvez had told the Viceroy that he owed his triumph over the English to his support from New Spain. Similarly, the Intendant at New Orleans had recently written to Mexico and had praised the abundant supplies sent to Louisiana and the promptness of their delivery. The same Intendant asserted that the army before Pensacola was being well provisioned. The Viceroy regretted that the officials in Cuba were not satisfied. There was no lack of food or money for Havana; the fault lay with the Intendant of the Army in Cuba, whose estimates of the island's needs had been too low, a fault which the Intendant had admitted before the Junta of Generals. Mayorga made a general statement of his services:
Here there occurs a marginal note written in a different hand:
The letter resumes
Complaints from Madrid, which echoed the charges of Juan Ignacio de Urriza, Intendant of the Army at Havana, continued. In some cases, changing circumstances and the slow passage of mail had made the accusations completely irrelevant to current reality, if they ever had a basis of fact. In June, more than one month after Pensacola had surrendered, José de Gálvez wrote to allege that the lack of food in Havana was delaying the attack on that port.It was said that New Spain had sent only a small quantity of flour, vegetables, and meat, that the army's treasury was empty, and that the warehouses contained nothing for the maintenance of the troops. For this reason, according to the Minister of the Indies, Bernardo de Gálvez was unable to begin his attack on Pensacola. He warned that unless immediate aid came from Mexico, the Viceroy must be blamed for negating "the most important operation in the hemisphere.25 To the stream of intemperate imperatives that issued almost daily from Spain in the spring and summer of 1781, Mayorga responded at first with variations on a simple theme: Havana could not be supplied unless ships came to Veracruz:
Until July 3, 1781, the Viceroy responded to the charges made against him in moderate tones. On that date he received and answered the letter from José de Gálvez in which the minister charged that his brother had fought alone and unaided against the English invaders ascending the San Juan River. The copy of Mayorga's answer as it appears in Volume 129 of the Correspondencia de Virreves is a singular and revealing document. It is obvious in this much-edited letter that anger and resentment struggled with caution and rendered it partially illegible and somewhat incoherent: Although the troops of this Kingdom are reduced to only three Regiments of Infantry and two of Veteran Cavalry, with very little strength when I sent the aids of money and gunpowder to the President of Guatemala, although afterwards the expenses of the Provincial Militia have increased without their ranks having yet been filled: with all this, I could have sent at the same time some troops (as I did to Manila) if he had asked me, but he did not, and since then with reflection about the long distance by land. . Here there is a scribbled interpolation in the margin:
The last three lines of the interpolation are completely illegible, and the letter resumed with a paragraph which has been struck through:
The last Paragraph of the letter followed: This is what occurs to me to explain the objection of His Majesty to the alleged lack of troops, which Your Excellency indicated to me in the Royal Order dated February 15, and I hope that Your Excellency will forward this vindication to the attention of the Sovereign.27 With this letter Mayorga sent a copy of the letter from Matías de Gálvez which appeared to prove that the complaints of his being laggard in aiding Guatemala were untrue:
Although Mayorga found the testimony of Matías de Gálvez useful in affirming the value of support from Mexico, another report from the Captain-General provoked his anger. Matías de Gálvez had written Mayorga that upon his request the Viceroyalty of Peru had sent him 200,000 pesos. The Viceroy of New Spain regarded this action an affront to his Kingdom and to himself, because, as he wrote to José de Gálvez, he would have promptly sent the same sum to Guatemala if the Captain General had requested it.29 The Minister of the Indies denied that his brother had received that sum. Matias had asked for, and had received, 100,000 pesos and 400 swords, and Jose Antonio de Areche had sent the money and weapons to Realejo.30 While charges and counter-charges crossed the Atlantic and the Gulf, the resources of New Spain continued to move to the theatre of war as swiftly as ship movements permitted. On July 11 the million pesos to be given to the French moved from the capital to Veracruz by forced marches to be loaded on board two warships from Havana which had been promised in March and had finally arrived.31 The ships left Veracruz loaded with a total of 4,515,000 pesos, 15,000 quintales of gunpowder, 200 quintales of slow-match, and as much food as they could carry. There was no prospect of an increase in the number of ships from Havana, and the Viceroy canceled further movement of provisions to the coast. The warehouses of Veracruz were filled, and there was a shortage of mules in the capital and Puebla. He also ordered that the foodstuffs which had been longest in storage in Veracruz be withdrawn and sold for whatever they would bring. In Mayorga's judgment the sale of the food, even at reduced prices, was preferable to its total loss through rot and insect damage. Ships from the Peninsula were at this time apparently as scarce as ships from Havana, and the all-important refinement of silver had suffered. The Viceroy expressed his concern to Madrid:
Beset by quarrels with the Minister of the Indies and harassed by the enmity of the Intendant of the Army in Havana, the Viceroy could not know that the million pesos sent to Havana on July 11th for the use of the French would prove to be a contributing factor to the survival of the infant republic of the north. The arrival of Count de Grasse in the West Indies had set in motion a sequence of events which was to insure the military victory of the American and French forces over the British on the North American continent. General Washington saw in the French fleet and the troops it carried an instrument by which he could score a decisive victory either in New York over Clinton or in Virginia over Cornwallis. A reconnaissance of the British land defenses of New York City discouraged Washington and his French associate, Count Rochambeau, from an attempt on the city. They decided to move the combined American and French army southward and to concentrate on Cornwallis, an easier target who had no fortress to which he could retreat. Two dispatches important to the outcome of the war were written almost simultaneously by Sir Henry Clinton and Count Rochambeau. Clinton knew from intercepted enemy letters that de Grasse was coming to North America to support a land action by Washington and Rochambeau, although the exact destination was unknown. Therefore, on May 26, 1781, Clinton sent an order to Cornwallis to occupy and fortify a position either at Williamsburg or at Yorktown. After the inevitable criticism from British officers that followed Cornwallis' surrender, Clinton explained his order as follows:
On May 28th, Count Rochambeau wrote to Count de Grasse at Cap François, and asked him to come north to Chesapeake Bay with at least twenty-five warships and three thousand troops. He must also bring with him 1,200,000 livres or their equivalent, for the French forces with Washington had only enough funds to support them until August 20th. The American army was in a worse financial condition. Most of the troops had not been paid in cash since enlistment, and there were disturbing signs of mutiny when orders were given for them to begin the long march from New York to Virginia. As Rochambeau expressed it: "These people are at the end of their means.34 When de Grasse received this letter, he decided to cancel the scheduled sailing of a large convoy of merchantmen from the French West Indies to Europe and to take his entire fleet to the Chesapeake instead of employing it to protect French commerce. To subordinate commercial traffic to naval action was unthinkable to the English command. The abrupt and uncharacteristic cancellation of the French convoy for Europe took the enemy by surprise and enabled the French to execute a departure from the West Indies without English challenge.34 De Grasse had communicated the substance of Rochambeau's request to Josef Solano, and the Commandant of Marine had approved the plan to move against Cornwallis, for de Grasse had promised to return to the West Indies in October to cooperate with the Spanish in the invasion of Jamaica.36 Rochambeau wanted 1,200,000 livres, but it proved impossible for de Grasse to raise money in the French West Indies. He offered to pledge his own extensive holdings in French Santo Domingo as security for a loan to the French crown, but his offer was not accepted even though the value of his properties far exceeded the sum needed. He conferred again with Solano, and then wrote to Rochambeau on July 6th:
On July 23rd, when de Grasse was ready to sail, two ships caught fire through carelessness. Several other ships were damaged while attempting to escape from the vicinity of the burning and exploding vessels, and the departure was delayed. Finally, the French fleet of twenty-eight ships of the line and auxiliary vessels sailed from Cap François on August 5th. De Grasse took his fleet westward through the narrow and difficult Old Bahama Channel. There were two reasons for choosing the dangers of this unfrequented passage. It was unlikely that any British ship would sight him, and its waters were a secure rendezvous point for the fleet and the frigate which would return from Havana. On August 17th the treasure ship joined de Grasse thirty leagues off Matanzas; it had received the needed money within five hours of its arrival at Havana. The Cuban coastal pilots who had been guiding the ships were dropped on the 19th, and the French turned northward into the channel between the Bahama Islands and Florida. On his way de Grasse gave chase and captured all the ships he encountered. Four British vessels were taken, one of them a frigate which had been detached from Rodney's fleet and sent to Charleston. Interrogation of the frigate's officers revealed that Rodney had gone to England and that the British in the West Indies were ignorant of de Grassa's departure. The French were thus assured of not being taken in the rear. Since de Grasse succeeded in capturing all the British ships he sighted on the way northward, it was certain that Cornwallis and Clinton would have no precise warning of his time of arrival or his destination. De Grasse scored a complete surprise. On August 31st an English naval lieutenant and a party of dragoons left Cornwallis to make a reconnaissance to Old Point Comfort. There the startled officer made a hasty count of "some thirty to forty" French ships in the bay, and he hastened back to Yorktown. Cornwallis and his 7,000 men ware trapped.38 The opportune arrival of de Grasse was one of the most decisive employments of naval power in history, according to a prominent British naval historian, for "before it, the creation of the United States was possible; after it, it was certain.39 It is doubtful that the French-American victory over Cornwallis pleased Mayorga as much as a personal victory which he won in September. The Viceroy scored a belated vindication of his conduct during the invasion of Nicaragua by the English. The King finally approved the measures taken to assist Matías de Gálvez. However, Mayorga was cautioned to continue his shipments of money, munitions, and food "with the same zeal and energy that Your Excellency has shown until now.40 At this time, for some unstated reason, the Viceroy chose to call to the attention of José de Gálvez a project which had occupied his predecessor, Bucareli, for two and one-half fruitless years: the proposal by the Crown to establish a foundry for bronze cannon near Veracruz. Exhaustive and expensive surveys had been made and the reports had been forwarded to Spain, where they had been received in silence. Mayorga sent the mass of correspondence on the subject to Miguel Puchalt, the Commandant of Artillery at Veracruz, so that this officer could review the surveys and recommendations made by engineers between April, 1776, and November, 1779. He did this "in case His Majesty should decide to found this establishment.41 Apparently no one cared to reopen consideration of an artillery foundry in New Spain, for José de Gálvez made no reply to Mayorga's letter. At the moment the Minister of the Indies was more concerned with the projected invasion of Jamaica, preparations for which were to begin when Count de Grasse should return from North America to the West Indies, as he had promised to do in October. When the expedition against Pensacola had been planned, Mayorga had objected to sending regular troops from New Spain to join the siege because he had feared that a sudden English invasion would have found his kingdom defenseless. In the autumn of 1781 José de Gálvez acted to anticipate possible arguments by the Viceroy against releasing troops when the invasion of Jamaica occurred. The Minister stated that the combined forces of Spain and France would move against the island in January 1782. Because of the strength of the expedition and because the English were aware of it, all threats of an English offensive against any Spanish possession had been eliminated. The enemy had lost West Florida, and he no longer had anything to protect in the Gulf of Mexico. The only possible English response to allied naval hegemony would be to fall back and defend Jamaica, their most valuable colony in the West Indies. There was no possible threat to New Spain; consequently the Viceroy could have reason for not sending troops from Mexico to Cuba. As many troops as possible would be withdrawn from the garrisons of Cuba, and the soldiers from Mexico would replace them. The Viceroy was to prepare one of his three veteran regiments for service abroad, and the Governor of Havana would send ships for the regiment as soon as possible. Mayorga was to insure that the regiment was completely equipped and ready for immediate embarkation, yet not even an approximate date was given for the arrival of its transport. The instructions included the threat of royal displeasure which by now had become routine:
With the invasion of Jamaica scheduled for January 1782 the question of the service of supply to Cuba became of paramount importance. The controversy over aid sent and aid required rose to a new pitch of acrimony. Mexico City and Havana exchanged accusations, and both parties appealed to Spain. José de Gálvez lost no opportunity to express support for the Havana officials. From Spain the Viceroy heard once again that the statements of money and food sent to maintain the army and squadron had been received and noted, but that his remittances had been inadequate. The Minister of the Indies added a new allegation, one which Mayorga, with his limited sources of information, was unable to refute: only assistance from other sources had enabled the armed forces of Cuba to operate:
Only two days before this complaint was written, the Viceroy had compiled what he regarded as documentary proof of his generous aid to Cuba. On October 24th he had received an account from the Ministry of the Real Hacienda in Veracruz of all that had been shipped from that port to Havana since he had assumed office. He forwarded the detailed statement to José de Gálvez with strong comments on the veracity of Havana's Intendant of the Army: This copy is passed to the hands of Your Excellency in order that you may be able with this document to cause His Majesty to judge correctly the erroneous concept created by the vicious account ("siniestro informe") of the Intendant of the Army of Havana about the scant aid I have sent there. As of the 17th of this month [October] it amounted to:
Although the Intendant at Havana had been told that there was a great quantity of food in the royal warehouses of Veracruz waiting shipment to Cuba, ships seldom came; and the food was rotting. The Viceroy had rounded up 1,913 criminals and vagabonds and had shipped them to Havana to serve aboard the warships of the squadron. In obedience to orders, the Regiment of the Crown was being prepared for service in Cuba, but the ships to transport them had not come, nor had there been word of their coming. With the tone of one who has proved a point, Mayorga concluded:
In October nine warships and fifty-eight merchantmen arrived safely at Cádiz after a voyage from Veracruz and Havana. Included in their cargoes were 3,000,000 pesos which were the property of the crown, the profit of the royal tobacco monopoly of New Spain.46 José de Gálvez' account of the king's delight at the safe transit of the treasure was undoubtedly accurate, for the motherland's need for money was great. War spending had coon exhausted the royal treasury in Spain, although 2,000,000 florins had been borrowed in Amsterdam between 1778 and 1780. An appeal to the Five Great Guilds of Madrid for money had been denied, and the government had feared to levy adequate taxes because of the possible effect on the public. Frequent and regular shipments of Mexican silver to the Peninsula were impossible under war conditions. The issue of some sort of paper money had become necessary, otherwise domestic commitments could not have been met, and the purpose of war materials abroad could not have been made. Therefore, in the summer of 1780 the government had accepted the proposal of a merchant syndicate headed by a Frenchman, Francisco Cabarrus, to advance money against an issue of interest-bearing treasury warrants known as vales reales, which functioned as money. Sixteen thousand five hundred vales, each with a face value of 600 pesos, had been issued: a total of 9,900,000 pesos. They bore four percent interest and passed at face value plus the accumulated interest in the payment of obligations owed to the Crown or to private individuals. The vales were not legal tender for less than 600 pesos nor in retail transactions, and they did not circulate in the Indies. A second issue of vales was made on March 20, 1781, to the amount of 5,303,100 pesos. Through this means Spain successfully overcame its temporary lack of specie.47 There was only one possible source of silver to redeem the vales: New Spain. On November 16, 1781, there came the inevitable order to Mexico City to send 2,000,000 pesos for a payment to the Cabarrus syndicate.48 The Viceroy complied as soon as he received the order on March 26, 1782.49 Shortly after the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown on October 19, 1781, de Grasse disappointed his American allies by announcing that he must return promptly to the West Indies, as he had promised Commandant Josef Solano. In any case, established custom forbade large-scale naval operations in North American waters during the winter. In September, José de Gálvez had notified Mayorga that the invasion of Jamaica was to take place in January 1782. By November of 1781 it appeared that the attack could not be made on schedule, and several factors combined to delay the expedition. Spanish troops had been drawn off to put down a rebellion in the Natchez area where the English commander of Pensacola had incited revolt among the settlers in an attempt to relieve the Spanish pressure on West Florida.50 A rebellion caused by the imposition of new and unpopular taxes had occurred in the viceroyalty of New Granada. Seven warships and a regiment of troops had to be sent from Cuba to put down the rebels.51 The French fleet had encountered heavy weather on its return voyage from North America to the West Indies; and in December 1781 the British Admiralty was relieved to receive information relayed by an observer that de Grasse's fleet was lying in harbor at Martinique and that some of the ships were partially dismasted. There were no signs of an early movement against Jamaica.52 Viceroy Mayorga was informed of the delay, although he was not told all of the reasons for the postponement. An invasion force of 20,000 Spanish and French troops would attack in March 1782 under the command of Bernardo de Gálvez, who had been raised to the rank of Lieutenant-General since the conquest of Pensacola. The naval squadron which would transport and supply this army would be a combined force of Spanish and French warships. The Minister of the Indies conveyed the King's confidence that the Viceroy would "continue as until now making frequent and abundant remissions of money and provisions to Havana," a confidence which was somewhat mystifying in light of the torrent of charges which had been directed at Mayorga in the past. The dispatch left no doubt that the interests of the viceroyalty would be completely subordinated to the needs of the expedition:
Draining the resources of New Spain was less difficult than the transmission of the resources to Cuba. In November there occurred an incident which well exemplified the difficulties which the Viceroy had to overcome because of the shortage of shipping and the generally poor condition of Spanish ships. In this instance, the only possible way to comply with the repeated orders to speed money and supplies to Havana was to violate long-standing prohibitions against commerce with aliens. On November 1st a warship from Havana, The San Francisco de Asis, and a French frigate from Santo Domingo, anchored at Veracruz with eight lesser vessels. The convoy had come for money and food. The Viceroy at once ordered two and one-half million pesos sent to the port, and three days later he sent another half million. As for food, there was more in storage at Veracruz than the whole convoy could carry. Since the Regiment of the Crown had completed its preparation to move to Havana as ordered, the Viceroy directed its Colonel, Juan Cambiazo, to inquire when the necessary transports would come from Havana. The convoy commander reported that not enough ships were available at Havana to call for the regiment at any time in the near future. Consequently, Mayorga ordered the San Francisco de Asis and the eight merchant ships to receive the troops for their return voyage to Cuba, and he ordered the regiment to prepare for embarkation. Francisco de Saavedra, the convoy commander, countered with the plea that his ships could not carry both the regiment and the supplies which Havana needed. There was space for one battalion, no more.54 Furthermore, the San Francisco de Asis was in such poor condition that she would be unable to sail when the other ships had been loaded. Since most of the convoy officers, including the commander of the French frigate, were in the capital, Mayorga held a conference with them. The Spanish officers agreed that the need for funds in Havana was great, and that it would be best to send one million pesos and two companies of the Regiment of the Crown on the French ship, which was a swift sailer and ready for sea. The frigate was to be given rations to feed the extra men and any other help needed. The other two million pesos would follow on the San Francisco de Asis whenever that warship might be in condition to return to Havana. The eight merchant ships which had come to Veracruz with her would have to await her repairs. The French commander of the frigate saw in the circumstances an opportunity to make a personal profit by trading in a product whose exportation the Spaniards had always reserved for themselves:
Mayorga requested the Commandant of Marine at Havana, Josef Solano, not to send warships to Veracruz in such bad condition that repairs would be necessary once they had reached that port. Even minor refitting at Veracruz was difficult, time-consuming, and expensive, for neither materials nor shipwrights were readily available there. When José de Gálvez learned of the poor condition of the warship and the delay of the convoy, he approved the Viceroy's request of Solano; and he added a similar admonition of his own. But he strongly disapproved of the sale of cochineal to the Frenchman, and forbade a repetition of the transaction:
The focus of Spanish military attention had shifted from West Florida to the West Indies, where Jamaica was its primary objective and the Bahamas a secondary one. Financing and provisioning the projected attack on Jamaica was to be the principal duty of New Spain during the coming months. Although after the surrender of Cornwallis there were still 30,000 British troops in North America, they remained immobile in Halifax, and in the fortified enclaves of New York, Charleston, Savannah, and St. Augustine. There was no threat to the Spanish gains in West Florida. Yet in December 1781 the Province of Louisiana asked for more financial aid. The colony had never been economically self-sufficient, and it had exceeded its resources in supporting operations in West Florida and in suppressing rebellion in the Natchez area. On June 30, 1780, Intendant Martin Navarro had received a royal order which empowered him to ask New Spain for any funds he might need. On December 10, 1781, Navarro requested that the situado of Louisiana, 315,000 pesos, be doubled for the duration of the war. The Viceroy notified José de Gálvez of his compliance with the request, although he added that Navarro had testified that Louisiana had never in the past suffered a food shortage or a scarcity of money, because New Spain had always promptly fulfilled its obligations to the province.57 The letter from Navarro was a portent of things to come. Spanish military and naval activity steadily diminished during 1782, and after the defeat of de Grasse by Rodney in April, there could be no question of invading Jamaica. In England, Lord North's ministry fell in March, and its successor, the Rockingham ministry, began a gradual withdrawal from the war in America. Yet; paradoxically, the year 1782 would find the treasuries of New Spain, for the first time since the war began, unable to meet the demands made from Havana. Footnotes to Chapter IV
1. Caughey, Gálvez, pp. 194-195. 2. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, January 5, 1781, AGN, RC, Vol. 120, expediente 5, fol. 9. 3. A great portion
of the war materiel that reached American armies from French sources
had been carried by the Dutch. Eighteen shiploads of gunpowder for
America had sailed from Amsterdam to St. Eustatius between January
1 and May 15, 1776 alone. Bemis, The Diplomacy of the American
Revolution, pp. 120-121. 5.
Since the outbreak of the war with Spain Clinton had been urging that
Pensacola be strengthened. After its capture he wrote:
Quoted in Willcox, The American Rebellion, p. 314. 6. Caughey, Gálvez, pp. 198-199. 7. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, February 12, 1781, AGN, RC, Vol. 120, expediente 16, f. 24. Juan Bautista (or Jean Baptiste) Bonet was apparently an able man whose unfortunate personality caused him to quarrel with all his associates and superiors. The son of a French shipbuilder who had moved to Cartagena during the reign of Felipe V, Bonet had risen to prominence under Ensenada, and had successfully stimulated dockyard work at Callao and Valparaiso before coming to Havana. There he improved operations at the royal arsenal, but he was manifestly unsuited for the authority of a Commandant of Marine, the position to which he was promoted in 1776. Three successive Captains General of Cuba endured almost incessant quarrels with the testy Frenchman. After his removal, Bonet returned to Cartagena, where he continued to serve the Armada until his death in 1784. Jácobo Pazuela y Lobo, Diccionario geografico, estadistico, historic de la Isla de Cuba, 4 vols. (Madrid: Imprenta del Establecimiento de Mellado, 1863-1866), Vol. 1, p. 188. 9. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, July 3, 1781, AGN, CV, Vol. 129, No. 1029, fols. 43-43v. It is interesting to note that the copy of this letter in Mayorga's correspondence is written in the clear, regular hand of an escribano, and that in the right-hand margin there appears the single word cabal, which may be translated as "just," "fitting" or "perfect." The writer of this gloss is unknown, and the script differs from that in which the letter is written. If one can judge from the shade of the ink, the marginal comment is of the same date as the letter itself. 9. José
de Gálvez to Mayorga, February 15, 1781, AGN, RC, Vol. 120,
expediente 24, fols. 52-52v. 11. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, February 12, 1781, AGN, RC, Vol. 120, expediente 22, fols. 40-45. 12. Pedro Romero de Terreros, Count of Regla, was one of the wealthiest men in New Spain. He owned silver mines near Pachua, fifty miles northeast of Mexico City, one of the oldest silver-mining centers of the kingdom. He had retired from mining years before as the result of continued labor troubles, but Viceroy Bucareli had persuaded him to reopen his mines in 1775. In 1776 the Count had offered to pay for the construction of two warships at the Havana yards, a donation which Bucareli regarded as equivalent to 450,000 pesos. Bobb, Bucareli, p. 114, pp. 177-179. 13. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, March 15, 1781, AGN, CV, Vol. 128, No. 971, fols. 139-140. 14. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, September 12, 1781, AGN, RC, Vol. 121, expediente 64, fol. 159. 15. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, March 15, 1781, AGN, CV, Vol. 128, No. 971, fols. 139-140. 16. Havana had greatly overestimated the strength of the forces in Jamaica. Although Bernardo de Gálvez' siege of Pensacola lasted from February to May, Jamaica was powerless to relieve the port. A weak force sailed from the island toward Pensacola, but it turned back without having sighted the Spanish. Mackesy, The War for America, pp. 415-416. 17. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, March 17, 1781, AGN, RC, Vol. 120, expediente 82, fol. 124. 18. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, July 11, 1781, AGN, CV, Vol. 129, No. 1111, fols. 61-61v. 19. Although this paper is not primarily concerned with the personality clash between José de Gálvez and. Mayorga, the animosity between the Minister and the Viceroy, from the spring of 1781 onward, colored nearly all their communication. The factual shortage of New Spain's participation in the war became distorted by the heat of mutual recrimination, a contest in which the viceroy was at a disadvantage. Although Mayorga did not venture to attack José de Gálvez directly, he fought back by indirection. He repeatedly questioned the competence of other royal officials and challenged their probity. He alluded to New Spain's unprecedented expenditures of money and supplies as prima facie evidence of his efficient administration. 20. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, April 19, 1781, AGN, RC, Vol. 120, expediente 197, reservada No. 25, fols. 262-262v. 21. José de Gálvez to Cosio, April 20, 1781, AGN, BC, Vol. 120, expediente 204, reservada No. 28, fols. 270-270v. 22. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, April 21, 1781, AGN, RC Vol. 120, expediente 204, reservada No. 28, Fols. 270-270v. 23. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, April 20, 1781, AGN, RC, Vol. 120, expediente 202, reservada No. 27, fols. 268-268v. 24, Mayorga to José de Gálvez, April 23, 1781, AGN, CV, Vol. 128, No. 1019, fols. 215-217. 25. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, June 11, 1781, AGN, RC, Vol. 121, expediente 13, reservada Np. 32, fols. 36-37. Pensacola had been taken on May 8th. The Diario of the expedition against Pensacola, previously cited, contains no reference to a food shortage. Food is mentioned only rarel2y: the troops went ashore with three days' rations; they were issued aquardiente on several occasions after having been drenched by rains; the Spanish conquerors issued army rations to the women and children of Pensacola after the city was taken. The lack of of comment on food seems to indicate that provisions were not a problem during the siege. 26. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, July 3, 1781, AGN, CV, Vol. 129, No. 1094, fols. 44-44v. 27. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, July 3, 1781, AGN, CV, Vol. 129, No. 1095, Lois. 45-45v. The Provincial Militia mentioned in this letter had been organized by Villalba. It was undermanned and under equipped and of dubious value. Viceroy Bucareli had attempted to reform it, and the effort had cost him 2,789,844 pesos by 1780. In 1784 Inspector General Crespo estimated the annual cost of the Provincial Militia at 449,420 pesos. McAlister, Fuero Militar, p. 5. 28. Matías de Gálvez to Mayorga, April 20, 1781, AGN, Historia, Vol. 186, No. 7, no pagination. The Minister of the Indies acknowledged receipt of his brother's letter to Mayorga, but made no comment on it. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, January 20, 1782, AGN, RC, Vol. 122, expediente 5, fol. 8. 29. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, July 3, 1781, AGN, CV, Vol. 129, No. 1098, fols. 48-48v. 30. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, January 20, 1782, AGN, RC, Vol. 122, expediente 6, fol. 9. Jose Antonio de Areche, who had served Viceroy Bucareli as fiscal, had been sent to the Viceroyalty of Peru as Visitador General, Bobb, Bucareli, p. 248. 31. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, July 11, 1781, AGN, CV, Vol. 129, No. 1111, fols. 61-61v. 32. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, July 23, 1781, AGN, CV, Vol. 129, No. 1177, fols. 129-130v. At that time the mercury used in the refining of Mexican silver came from Spain. Production at the once-rich deposit at Huancavélica in the Viceroyalty of Peru had declined to a point that made its mercury more expensive than that brought from the mines of Almaden, in Spain. A crew of experts from Almaden had searched for mercury in New Spain from 1778 to 1780 and had spent 160,000 pesos, but had found nothing. Bobb, Bucareli, pp. 193-194. 33. Willcox, American Rebellion, p. 317. 34. Henri Doniol,
Histoire de la participation de la France ál'establiesment
des Etats-Unis d'Amerique, 5 Vols. (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale,
1884-1892), vol. 4, p. 647 (hereafter referred to as participation
de la France).
Quoted in Mackesy, The War for America, p. 419. 36. Doniol, Participation de la France, Vol. 4, p. 656. 37. Jared Sparks, compiler and editor, The Writings of George Washington, 12 Vols. (Boston: John B. Russell, 1834–1837), Vol. 8, pp. 522-523. 38. Charles Lee Lewis, Admiral de Grasse and American Independence (Annapolis: United States Naval Academy, 1945), p. 140. 39. Michael Lewis, The History of the British Navy (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1962), p. 164. 40. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, September 23, 1781, AGN, RC, Vol. 121, expediente 77, fol. 177. 41. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, August 23, 1781, AGN, CV, Vol. 129, No. 1357, fols. 340-340v. The Viceroy's letter concluded with a curiously naive statement:
The
unsuccessful attempts to locate an artillery foundry in New Spain is
treated in Bobb, Bucareli, pp. 110-112.
42. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, September 28, 1781, AGN, RC, Vol. 121, expediente 102, reservada No. 35, fols. 210-211v. 43. José
de Gálvez to
Mayorga, October 26, 1781, AGN, RC, Vol. 121, expediente 143,
fols. 249-249v. 45. Ibid., fol. 282v. José de Gálvez eventually ordered the Intendant of the Army at Havana to send more ships to Veracruz, and to send them at more frequent intervals, but little improvement is reflected in the Viceroy's correspondence.José de Gálvez to Mayorga, April 12, 1782, AGN, RC, Vol. 122, expediente 100, fol. 186. 46. José
de Gálvez to
Mayorga, November 17, 1781, AGN, RC, Vol. 121, expediente
175, fols. 354-354v. 48. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, November 16, 1781, AGN, RC, Vol. 121, expediente 173, fols. 347-348v. 49. Mayorga to Jose de G6lvez, March 26, 1782, AGN, CV, Vol. 130, No. 1598, fols. 230-230v. 50. Caughey, Gálvez, pp. 214-220. 51. Salvador de Madariaga, The Fall of the Spanish American Empire (revised ed.; New York: Collier Books, 1963), pp. 197-198. 52. Mackesy, The War for America, p. 449. 53. José de Gálvez to Mayorga, November 18, 1781, AGN, RC, Vol. 121, expediente 178, fols. 358-359v. 54. The standard Spanish infantry regiment, which was the model followed by Villalba in organizing the regiments of New Spain, consisted of two battalions, each composed of two grenadier companies and eight fusilier companies. Its total strength, which included its command and staff group, was 1,446 officers and men. McAlister, The Reorganization of the Army of New Spain, pp. 10-11. 55. Mayorga to
José de Gálvez, November 27, 1781, AGN, CV, Vol, 129,
No. 1410, fols. 409-410v. 57. Mayorga to José de Gálvez, March 13, 1782, AGN, CV, Vol. 130, No. 1556, fols. 183-183v.
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