George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 4, 15th edition.

[444] Grimaldi, for Spain, was persuaded that the expedi-

chap. XIX.} 1762.

tion of the English against Havana must be defeated. But before the end of the twenty-ninth day of September news arrived of a very different result.

Havana was then, as now, the chief place in the West Indies, built on a harbor large enough to shelter all the navies of Europe, capable of being made impregnable from the sea, having docks in which ships of war of the first magnitude were constructed, rich from the products of the surrounding country, and the centre of the trade with Mexico. Of this magnificent city England undertook the conquest. The command of her army, in which Carleton and Howe each led two battalions, was given to Albemarle, the friend and pupil of the Duke of Cumberland. The fleet was intrusted to Pococke, already illustrious as the conqueror in two naval battles in the East.

Assembling the fleet and transports at Martinico, and off Cape St. Nicholas, the adventurous admiral sailed directly through the Bahama Straits, and on the sixth day of June came in sight of the low coast round Havana. The Spanish forces for the defence of the city were about forty-six hundred; the English had eleven thousand effective men, and were recruited by nearly a thousand negroes from the Leeward Islands, and by fifteen hundred from Jamaica. Before the end of July, the needed reinforcements arrived from New York and New England; among these was Putnam, the brave ranger of Connecticut, and numbers of men less happy, because never destined to revisit their homes.

On the thirtieth of July, after a siege of twentynine