The capture of Havana by forces under the English flag fills little space in the history of England and Spain, because of the magnitude of the interests involved elsewhere.  It is almost forgotten in America, in spite of the bearing of all its contemporary incidents upon the rapidly approaching revolution, and yet it was an achievement of the colonial troops and consequently the first assault upon Cuba by Americans.

It was an event of the first importance in its own day and contained lessons of the first moment for the guidance of those who had to plan the conduct of the war against Spain in 1898.  It proved that American troops under efficient officers could take the field with success against double their number of Spaniards fully provisioned and strongly intrenched.  It proved that Havana could be successfully assaulted by a combined military and naval force, regardless of her picturesque but obsolete fortifications.  Spain’s lack of administrative ability in the later war as well as in the first, destroying any advantage to be derived from balls and cannon.  On the other side it proved that Americans had to look forward to a considerable loss of life as a result of climatic conditions, if they attempted to conduct hostile operations in Cuba during the summer season.

The utter incapacity for straightforward, pertinacious fighting, which both Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington found in the Spanish army during the Peninsular war, was as conspicuous fifty years before, when the Americans took Havana, and may rightly be argued as perpetually inherent in the national character; for though the annals of Spain are filled with instances of individual courage of the first rank, demoralization sets in as soon as they come together in numbers in the face of a civilized foe.  Their chief maneuver in the course of a century and a half, has been just plain running away.  The victorious Wellington, seeing his Spanish allies running for dear life just after he had whipped the opposing French line in the last battle of the peninsular campaign, was moved to remark that he had seen many curious things in his life, but never before 20,000 men engaged in a foot race.

Yet the fight made by the Spaniards in Havana during the attack of the British and colonial forces in 1762 is the one notable instance of a prolonged struggle between men who speak English and men who speak Spanish.  History may be searched in vain, either in the old or new world, for a defense as able in point of generalship or as stubborn in resistance as the Spaniards made at the siege of Havana.  In all other cases, from the Elizabethan campaigns in Holland to the war with Mexico, the men educated in the Spanish school of arms have been content to spend their energies upon a single assault and then flee, sometimes even when the odds were greatly in their favor.

The English Armada left Portsmouth on March 5th, 1762, under the command of the gallant Admiral Pococke and Lord Albemarle, the force moving in seven divisions.  It consisted of nineteen ships of the line, eighteen frigates or smaller men-of-war, and 150 transports containing about 10,000 soldiers, nearly all infantry.  At the Island of Hayti, then called Hispanola, the British were joined by the successful expedition from Martinique.  Together they sat down before Havana, July 6th, 1762.