FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 41:  He was decapitated February 9, 1649.]

[Footnote 42:  So says Abbad.  No mention is made of this episode in Senor Acosta’s notes, nor is the name of Earl Estren to be found among those of the British commanders of that period.]

[Footnote 43:  Manila was taken in October, 1762.]

[Footnote 44:  An Account of Puerto Rico.  London, 1834,]

CHAPTER XXII

BRITISH ATTACKS ON PUERTO RICO (continued)—­INVASIONS BY COLOMBIAN
INSURGENTS

1797-1829

The raising of the siege of San Juan by Abercrombie did not raise at the same time the blockade of the island.  Communications with the metropolis were cut off, and the remittances from Mexico which, under the appellation of “situados,” constituted the only means of carrying on the Government, were suspended.[45] In San Juan the garrison was kept on half pay, provisions were scarce, and the influx of immigrants from la Espanola, where a bloody civil war raged at the time, increased the consumption and the price.  The militia corps was disbanded to prevent serious injury to the island’s agricultural interests, although English attacks on different points of the coast continued, and kept the inhabitants in a state of constant fear and alarm.

In December, 1797, an English three-decker and a frigate menaced Aguadilla, but an attempt at landing was repulsed.  Another attempt to land was made at Guayanilla with the same result, and in June, 1801, Guayanilla was again attacked.  This time an English frigate sent several launches full of men ashore, but they were beaten off by the people, who, armed only with lances and machetes, pursued them into the water, “swimming or wading up to their necks,” says Mr. Neuman.[46]

From 1801 to 1808 England’s navy and English privateers pursued both French and Spanish ships with dogged pertinacity.  In August, 1803, British privateers boarded and captured a French frigate in the port of Salinas in this island.  Four Spanish homeward-bound frigates fell into their hands about the same time.  Another English frigate captured a French privateer in what is now the port of Ponce (November 12, 1804) and rescued a British craft which the privateer had captured.  Even the negroes of Haiti armed seven privateers under British auspices and preyed upon the French and Spanish merchant ships in these Antilles.

Governor Castro, during the whole of his period of service, had vainly importuned the home Government for money and arms and ships to defend this island against the ceaseless attacks of the English.  When he handed over the command to his successor, Field-Marshal Toribio Montes, in 1804, the treasury was empty.  He himself had long ceased to draw his salary, and the money necessary to attend to the most pressing needs for the defense was obtained by contributions from the inhabitants.