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

[445] days, during which the Spaniards lost a thousand

chap. XIX.} 1762.

men, and the brave Don Luis de Velasco was mortally wounded, the Moro Castle was taken by storm. On the eleventh of August, the governor of Havana capitulated, and the most important station in the West Indies fell into the hands of the English. At the same time, nine ships of the line and four frigates were captured in the harbor. The booty of property belonging to the king of Spain was estimated at ten millions of dollars.

This most memorable siege was conducted in midsummer, against a city which lies just within the tropic. The country round the Moro Castle is rocky. To bind and carry the fascines was, of itself, a work of incredible labor, made possible only by aid of African slaves. Sufficient earth to hold the fascines firm was gathered with difficulty from crevices in the rocks. Once, after a drought of fourteen days, the grand battery took fire by the flames, and crackling and spreading where water could not follow it, nor earth stifle it, was wholly consumed. The climate spoiled a great part of the provisions. Wanting good water, very many died in agonies from thirst. More fell victims to a putrid fever, of which the malignity left but three or four hours between robust health and death. Some wasted away with loathsome disease. Over the graves the carrion-crows hovered, and often scratched away the scanty earth which rather hid than buried the dead. Hundreds of carcasses floated on the ocean. And yet such was the enthusiasm of the English, such the resolute zeal of the sailors and soldiers, such the unity of action between the fleet and army, that the vertical sun of June and July, the heavy rains of August, raging