CHAPTER V

With the solemn signing of the foregoing articles of capitulation on the twelfth of August, 1762, began the occupation of Havana by the British, who thus seemed to have attained the goal of their covetous aspirations. It was a great day for them; it was a day of mourning for the Cubans.

While these articles of capitulation were in themselves not unjust, differing in no essentials from those usually exacted by the victors from the vanquished, the people of Havana found it difficult to obey all these injunctions coming to them from a foreign authority. History furnishes abundant proofs that it is comparatively easy to conquer a country by numerical superiority or clever strategy, but that it is infinitely more difficult to conquer the hearts of its people. The Spanish historian Alcazar records an incident belonging to the history of the capture of Havana which illustrates this point.

As soon as the British were masters of the city Lord Albemarle called an extraordinary meeting in which he declared to the Municipio that, being masters of the city by force of arms of King George III. of England, they had to insist upon obedience and allegiance to him as sovereign. The Alcalde D. Pedro Santa Cruz at once rose to say that subjects of Don Carlos III. of Spain could not without committing perjury swear allegiance to any other monarch. He added: "The capitulation compels us to passive obedience. Count on this, but never on our dishonor." It seems that these noble words found an echo in the heart of the British commander who henceforth let the people choose whether to take the oath or not.

This story is symptomatic of the attitude of the population of Cuba towards the conquerors. When the morning of the thirteenth of August, 1762, dawned, the British were in possession of the town and port of Havana with one hundred and eighty miles to the east and all that tract of land to the west which terminates the island on that side. They took without resistance Managuas, Bejucal, Santiago, Mariel and Matanzas. The commander of the fort of San Severine in Matanzas, D. Felipe Garcia Solis, had stored up a large amount of provisions and supplies of all kinds in view of an eventual attack. But when he heard of the capitulation of Havana, he blew up the fort and retired with part of the garrison to Santiago. The governor of that city, D. Lorenzo Madriaga, was recognized as the authority to be obeyed by the people in that part of the island not taken by the British. Perhaps the British had gauged the sentiment of the population; perhaps they felt that their forces were too much weakened by the hardships of the siege. They made no attempts at further extending their conquest.

According to the agreement between Admiral George Pococke and Lord Albemarle on the one side and the Marques of the Royal Transports and D. Juan de Prado on the other side, the Spanish garrison was to retire with military honors; artillery arms and munitions were to be delivered to the British; the Spanish troops were to be sent back on British transports; but the British were to respect the Catholic religion, its ministers, and churches, hospitals, and colleges; and the population was not to be disturbed in the exercise of wonted occupations and employments; and the laws of Spain were to remain in force. On the thirteenth of August, the gates of Tierra were opened to the British and on the following day they entered with two pieces of artillery and planted their flags on the forts. The following day the Spanish vessels were delivered to them: _Tigre_, _Reina_, _Soberano_, _Infante_, _Aquilon_, _America_, _Conquistader_, _San Antonio_ and _San Genero_. Many merchant vessels in the bay were also taken. The value of their booty was estimated at fourteen million pesos. But according to Valdes their losses during the first twenty four days of the siege had been seven thousand men, some killed in combat, some deserters, but the greater part victims of the Cuban climate. Hence in spite of reenforcements from Jamaica and North America, they had only three thousand men of infantry when Havana was taken.

The departure of the Spanish troops was scheduled for the twenty-fourth of August. The British held ready for them three transports which on the thirtieth sailed through the gate of la Punta. One of them carried the Governor and his family. On his arrival in Madrid he was tried by a war council, which for his lack of foresight and energy in preparing the defense of Havana, condemned him to exile. But the king commuted the sentence to imprisonment for life. The British commanders, no longer needed in Havana, worn out with fatigue and weakened by the climate, also hurried to leave. Brigadier Burton returned to North America, Admiral Keppel to Jamaica, Pococke to England. He met with terrible tempests, lost one ship of line, and twelve transports. But the greeting he received on his arrival in England was most enthusiastic. Though the parliament was divided on the question of extending British conquests in Spanish America, there was still the party representing commercial interests to be reckoned with.

With a promptness quite unusual at that time a book was published shortly after the capture of Havana, which outlined the course to be pursued in order to reap the benefits of the South Sea trade, which so far had been in the hands of the French and Spanish. It was entitled "The Great Importance of the Havana" set forth in an "Essay on the Nature and Methods of Carrying on a Trade to the South Sea and the West Indies, by Robert Allen, Esq., who resided some years in the Kingdom of Peru, London, printed for J. Hinxman in Paternoster Row and D. Wilson in the Strand, in 1762. Dedicated to the most Hon. Thomas Harley, Esq., M. P. and Merchant of London." The author begins with reference to an old tradition that a Prince of Wales had made an expedition to the coast of Mexico in 1190 and died there. Upon this tradition and the assertion that the Mexican language abounds in Welsh words, he seems to base the right of British priority to Spanish America.

Mr. Allen was evidently much concerned with the activity of the French in West Indian waters. He says: "As to the slave-trade, it is too well known that the French are now under contract with the Spanish Assiento to supply them with four or five thousand negroes yearly and the greater profits and advantages which they reap from this trade has encouraged them to send many strong ships yearly to the coast of Africa which have not only taken many of our own ships on that coast, but also destroyed several of our many forts and settlements and likewise made several new settlements of their own, all which has been frequently represented both in the governing and legislative bodies of Britain, and no effectual reconciling remedy taken yet." He continues, that the channel of Spanish trade is quite altered from Jamaica "and the French, a nation whom we least suspected in trade, have of late years engrossed much of the greatest part thereof to themselves." He tries to rouse the British to the need of regaining the Spanish market in America, which was slowly slipping away from them, by a strenuous appeal to his Majesty to encourage such commerce by underselling the French. After giving a list of commodities and manufactures proper for this trade, he adds the postscript:

"If Queen Anne, at the treaty of Utrecht, obtained so valuable a branch of trade as the Assiento contract by the success of the Duke of Marlboro alone, which according to stipulation was for two millions in shares annually, but doubly augmented under that contract in other goods (tho' given up by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle with our right of logwood) how much more ought we to insist on valuable terms since the reduction of Cuba, the key to the South Sea trade?"

While the British people, like all people under a mass suggestion, were giving themselves up to jubilating and celebrating, the politicians in Parliament and elsewhere to controversies on technical questions, the business world of London and the great industrial and manufacturing centers of the country were considering investments in West Indian trade and calculating the profits to be made thereby. After all human nature is very much alike the world over. That the British as victors were also not different from other conquerors by force of arms and exacted requisitions and even without any formalities and ceremonies appropriated the treasures that seemed worth taking possession of, is evident from many data in the chronicles of those days. Not only were the royal chests taken, but also the property of private corporations, and individuals. Some documents relating to the "right of bells" have been presented and are interesting reading. Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Cleaveland, Artillery Commander of the island, addressed the following communication to Bishop Senor D. Pedro Agustino Morell of Santa Cruz, and to other priests:

"According to the rules and customs of war observed by all official commanders of artillery in all European countries when a besieged town surrenders by capitulation:

"I command that the city of Havana and the neighboring towns, where the army was situated, give account of all the bells found in all the churches, convents and monasteries, as well as in the sugar-plantations, and of other metals similar to bells, in order that said point shall be put into effect.

"Havana, 19 August, 1762.

"SAMUEL CLEAVELAND,

"Lieutenant-Colonel of Artillery."

The bishop addressed a letter of inquiry concerning this "Derecho de companes" to Lord Albemarle and received the reply, that the war custom was well known, that the chiefs of artillery receive a gratification from any besieged and captured town or city, and that the Lieutenant-Colonel insisted upon compliance with his demand, adding, however, that it would not be disproportionate. Cleaveland was offered one thousand pesos in place of the coveted bells, but the British considered this amount too small, and the bishop received another letter from Lord Albemarle, which reads:

"Illustrious Sir:

"The compensation offered to the Commandant of Artillery of His British Majesty for the bells of the city is so low as to compel me to express my indignation. In order to have the matter settled, I say, that your Reverence can give the said official for all the churches ten thousand pesos and I am in the hope that this letter will deserve your immediate attention.

"Your obedient servant,

"ALBEMARLE.

"Havana, 27 August, 1762."

The Bishop tried to obtain the sum demanded by alms and collections among his parishioners. But at a meeting on the thirty-first of August it was seen that the collection amounted only to one hundred pesos and four reales, which together with the previous one thousand pesos did not nearly approach the sum required. This was communicated to the British General with the remark that it would be impossible to raise more. This communication received no reply and the Commander of Artillery came to ask for the delivery of the bells, although this was not to take place until September fourth. He did not receive the bells, for the ten thousand pesos were got together by a loan, and the money was paid to Cleaveland on the sixth of that month.

Difficulties between the British authorities and the Spanish clergy increased as time went on. On the twentieth of August the Junta of priests and prelates had a meeting at which was discussed the demand of the British Lieutenant-General, the local governor of the place, for a church in which the Anglican worship was to be instituted. The Bishop decided at once to send the communication to said governor, explaining to him that this demand was not contained in the articles of capitulation and if his Excellency had some other basis to justify his claim, he should communicate it. In reply the Bishop received on the thirtieth of August the following letter:

"Havana, Aug. 30, 1762.

"Rev. Sir:

"I wish and ask that your Reverence provide for the British troops a church for their divine worship, or that an alternative be arranged with the Catholics for such hours in the morning or evening, in which they don't use their church.

"I request at the same time that an account be given me of all churches, convents, monasteries of every denomination, that are comprised in the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Cuba, as well as of Superiors and public officers associated with them.

"Very respectfully, etc.,

"ALBEMARLE."

In a long letter dated September second, 1762, the Bishop replied, that he had to consult with the government of his Spanish Majesty and briefly avoided complying with the demand. Thereupon he received a caustic communication from Albemarle saying:

"Sir:

"I received your very large letter, but which is no answer to mine. I do not know having read a particular Capitulation made with the Church, but I am sure that there is none that can exclude the Subjects of H. British Majesty of their public worship in churches; and for that reason, if you do not assign me a church I shall take one that suits me best, and please remember that all Ecclesiastical employes or dignitaries have to receive my approbation, and also that you better comply with my demand, and cease writing such long Epistles.

"ALBEMARLE.

"Havana, September 4, 1762."

After a consultation with the other prelates the bishop informed Albemarle that since he was so decided, he should choose any church that he liked best. Albemarle selected the Church of San Francisco. But he insisted upon his other claims, as can be seen from the following letter dated September 25:

"Some time ago I asked for a list of all Ecclesiastical Benefices (to which is associated a curacy) of the Donation of Your Honor; and once more I repeat my wish to be complied with without loss of time.

"I learn that the Jesuit college received in their order an English official dismissed from the Royal Service on account of his bad proceedings; I can hardly believe that such a thing has been done without my license. That order has even in Spain a bad reputation, and in Portugal and France they have been expelled. If they are not entirely under your jurisdiction, send to me their Rector, etc.

"ALBEMARLE."

The Bishop replied that the story about the admission of the discredited Englishman into the Jesuit seminary was altogether untrue, since the authorities of that college could not admit anybody, this being a special privilege of the Provincial residing in Mexico. A somewhat amusing incident of these disputes between the British authorities and the Spanish clergy of Havana is recorded in the following letter of the Bishop dated October twenty-second. It reads:

"Your Excellency:

"Yesterday between 4 and 5 o'clock in the afternoon, there called on me on your part a person whose name and nationality I do not know. All I know is that he speaks Spanish, though with a foreign accent and wears golden earrings as is customary with women. He addressed me with 'Usted.' I informed him in the conversation that in speaking to me he had to use a more dignified title. He replied that he would always use 'Usted.' It then occurred to me that this obstinacy might be justified by his higher rank. I asked him and he said that he had no other rank but that of a bomb-thrower in his Majesty's name. He continued in his way of speaking to me with a loud voice, and since in all his conduct he was wanting of the respect due to my dignity, I deem it fair that it should be corrected and that your excellency give me satisfaction."

Lord Albemarle seems to have paid no attention to this letter. But on the same day the Bishop received another urgent order in which Lord Albemarle, as Governor and Captain-General of the island, insisted in his demand to receive a list of all ecclesiastical orders and benefices, in order to know and be the "competent judge" of the persons appointed by the Bishop and be able to consent to their appointment. The Bishop in his reply referred to his previous letter, stating that the Governor could neither before nor after the appointment be a competent judge of the appointees, since ecclesiastics, according to all rights, were exempt of protests by the laity, and their privileges were inviolate.

According to the historian Blanchet, Bishop Morrell was at the end exiled to Florida for having refused to obey certain orders given by the British authorities.

Although Albemarle cannot be said to have governed with the tyranny that characterized the German governors of occupied territories in the recent war, he failed to win the people. Those residents of Havana who were able to leave the place, moved into the country or to towns like Villa-Clara. The peasants of the neighborhood, who had carried on a profitable trade with the city in garden and dairy products, fowl, venison, etc., preferred to renounce these profits rather than go to the market and have the British buy what their soil had raised and their hands had tended. The spirit of the people was unanimous in the hatred of the enemy conquerors. Their intemperance, their customs, and even their language irritated them. Altercations that terminated in bloodshed became more and more numerous as time went on. Any act of violence against the British was severely punished, and not a few Cuban "rebels" were executed; the atmosphere of Havana was soon charged with invisible mines that a spark could set off.

Complying with the orders of the British government, Albemarle had to exact the payment of certain sums from the population, including the clergy and the religious organizations, and found great difficulty in enforcing these orders. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that the feelings of the population were being deliberately hurt, especially by the disregard of the British authorities for the institutions maintained by the clergy. Thus a wave of indignation swept over the city, when the beggars and the sick were ejected from the convent of San Juan de Dios, which was turned into a hospital for the British. Without remuneration they occupied almost one-third of the buildings subject to an ecclesiastical tax, they transformed private residences into jails; they seized merchandise and funds that were owned by the Real Compania de Comercio and when these were claimed as private property, they were returned only after payment of one hundred and seventy-five pesos. As the tension grew crimes committed from vindictiveness increased among the population. M. Savine, the French writer referred to previously, reports that the Guajiros of the mountains poisoned the milk furnished to the garrison. A Cuban "rebel" who had escaped from the jail went about in the part of the island not occupied by the British and preached a "holy war" against the invaders of the island. Conditions were such that Havana might have become at any moment the scene of a new Sicilian Vespers.

It was at this time that the Commissary D. Lorenzo de Montalvo wrote to the Minister of War at Madrid under date of October eighteenth, 1762:

"The extraordinary mortality of the British troops has reduced them to the state which Your Excellency will see from the included papers. If at this moment eight or ten vessels arrived with two or three thousand men to debark, it would not be forty eight hours before they would capitulate."

There was indeed a movement on foot in the unoccupied part of Cuba to collect a force, march against Havana and deliver it from the British conquerors. A force of guerilleros was ready for action under command of the intrepid Aguiar. He was only waiting for enforcement promised him by Governor Madriaga of Santiago, who had three hundred and fifty men with two thousand and five hundred guns, collected at Yaguas and Villa-Clara. But he lingered at Yaguas and it was supposed that he was afraid of losing his position if the British should decide upon moving against Santiago. Madriaga was however associated with Aguiar, D. Lorenzo Montalvo, D. Nicolas Rapua, D. Pedro Calvo de la Puerta, D. Augustin de Cardenas and other prominent citizens and patriots of Cuba in a pact to reconquer Havana at an opportune moment, and action may have been delayed only because rumors were afloat that peace was about to be signed.

In Spain itself feeling ran high. The provinces of Murcia, Granada, Aragon, Valencia and Catalonia sent an address to King Charles III. asking to defend the colonies. It said among other things:

"Sir:

"Now is the moment to hold high the glory of the nation; let us humiliate under your auspices ambitious England which in her folly proposes nothing less than the ruin of all Europe. As her only aim is commerce, that is sordid gain, she wages a regrettable war upon a warlike nation that does not know meanness and has no other sentiments than the love of her king and her country. Money may be needed in London, as once in Carthage; but virtue, constancy and heroism we shall never lack, as they never failed the ancient Romans."

But there is no record that this address elicited anything more than an appreciative reply from the government at Madrid. For the diplomatic and political world of Spain as of Great Britain was indeed occupied in considering a settlement of the Spanish-British problem.

Nevertheless there were Spaniards, who even at that trying time must have viewed the state of things dispassionately, for the historian Pezuela gives the British much credit for the moderation and conciliatory tendency of their policy during the occupation. He records that they did not materially alter the general regime of the city, nor even make any radical changes in the municipal government. On taking possession of the town, Albemarle named for civil lieutenant-governor the Alderman D. Sebastian Penalver, a prominent lawyer; for the latter's Suplente or alternate, the alferez real or chief ensign D. Gonzale Oquendo, and for common civil judge D. Pedro Calvo de la Puerta, a high-constable and property holder highly esteemed by his fellow citizens. These three officials by their wisdom, unselfishness and impartiality lightened the burden of the foreign yoke.

Both Albemarle and Keppel had soon recognized some of the greatest evils of the colonial administration, among them the corruption of the lower courts and the amazing amount of bribery going on even in the higher departments of the government. They tried to check the malpractice of lawyers, and in a decree dated the fourth of November, 1762, prohibited the making of gifts or presents of any kind to the principal governor and to the inferior authorities, considering such practice as means to promote dishonesty. However, the attitude of the great majority was and remained hostile to the British and it needed all the prudence and tact of men like Oquendo, Penalver and Puerta to avoid conflicts between the citizens and the foreign authorities. Nor should the Intendant Montalvo be forgotten, whose services were highly appreciated by Albemarle.

In the British parliament there existed at that time a state of turmoil. The Earl of Bute, friend and adviser of George III., did not care for further extension of Britain's colonial possessions in America, saying that it was much greater importance "to bring the old colonies in order than to plant new ones." Others favored the return of Havana to Spain in exchange for Porto Rico and Florida. On the twenty-sixth of October, 1762, the British King expressed his approval of the latter proposal and urged the diplomats engaged in deliberating upon the subject speedily to draft a treaty. He wrote to Bedford, as quoted by Bancroft in his "History of the United States," Vol. III., p. 298:

"The best despatch I can receive from you will be those preliminaries signed. May Providence, in compassion to human misery, give you the means of executing this great and noble work."

The terms proposed to the French according to the same authority were severe and even humiliating, and Choiseul is reported as having said:

"But what can we do? The English are furiously imperious; they are drunk with success; and, unfortunately, we are not in a condition to abase their pride."

The preliminaries of a peace which was to bring a certain stability to the colonies in America and permanently settle the claims of the three nations that had for three centuries been striving for supremacy in the New World, were signed on the third of November, 1762. They contained the following stipulations: England was to receive the Floridas and some islands in the West Indies, but abandon Havana; it was to have Louisiana to the Mississippi, but without the island of New Orleans; it was likewise to have all Canada, Acadia, Cape Breton and its independent islands, Newfoundland, except a share of France in the fisheries, with the two islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon as shelter for their fishermen. In Africa England was to have Senegal, which insured for it the monopoly of the slave-trade. In the East Indies, too, France recovered only what she possessed on the first of January, 1749, the rest going to England and assuring its sway over that territory. France, on the other hand, to indemnify Spain for the loss of Florida, ceded to Spain New Orleans and all Louisiana west of the Mississippi. There is no doubt that France came off worst in this settlement; but, as her minister Choiseul said, it was at the time helpless. In England, which by this settlement laid the foundations of her great power, there was a great display of flamboyant oratory. The king was reported to have said:

"England never signed such a peace before, nor, I believe, any other power in Europe."

Granville, then, on his deathbed, exclaimed:

"The country never saw so glorious a war or so honorable a peace," and Bute, roused to defend it against some opponents in Parliament, uttered these words significant of the high esteem in which he held himself and whatever services he rendered England as favorite of the king:

"I wish no better inscription on my tomb than that I was its author."

It is needless to say that the effect of this document upon Spain was of quite a different nature. For it practically checked for all time her ambitions for maintaining supremacy in the world her discoverers and explorers had once claimed under her colors. Cuba, of course, rejoiced at the prospect of the restitution of Havana. Lord Albemarle, suffering from the strain of the siege and the climate, as no less from the realization that he would never be able to reconcile the Cubans to a recognition of his authority, had left early in the year 1762 and Sir William Keppel occupied his post. The peace was ratified at Paris on the tenth of February, 1763, and the people began to look forward with impatience to the arrival of a new governor from Madrid and to the debarkation of the British. In spite of the harassing situation which they had endured during the rule of the enemy they had not been idle, but planned many improvements and reforms which they promised themselves to execute as soon as the British domination would end. They had learned, too, to appreciate the advantages of free trade; for during the British occupation no less than nine hundred merchant vessels entered the harbor and not a few cargoes of negroes were landed.