The Golden Antilles (Search Book 6) by Tim Severin

Author:Tim Severin [Severin, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Lume Books
Published: 2018-10-11T04:00:00+00:00

10

Debacle at Hispaniola

By the time the English fleet sighted Hispaniola, relations between Penn and Venables, already strained, had broken down still further. Both men had an unfortunate habit of retreating into fits of sulks whenever they felt they had been snubbed by the other, and since neither was prepared to compromise on the least point of disagreement, the atmosphere was tense and lowering. This bickering at the very peak of the expedition’s organization had spread down to the other officers. They took sides in support of their respective commanders, and even prior to the fleet’s departure from Barbados there was so little trust left between the two factions that it was necessary for the senior officers to sign a joint resolution pledging that “the land forces do promise never to desert the Fleet” and that the sea officers would not sail off and abandon the army once it was landed. It was hardly an auspicious beginning to a campaign which clearly required the closest cooperation between both arms of the service, and it should have been obvious to all concerned in the affair that the two factions would have to stick to the spirit of the resolution if their attack on the Spanish Antilles was to be successful. But Penn soon dragged his feet. At the council of war on the voyage to Hispaniola the army proposed that an all-out frontal assault should be launched against Santo Domingo with both land and sea forces throwing their full weight simultaneously against the Spaniard. Penn immediately objected. He claimed (erroneously, as it turned out) that the Spanish garrison had floated a defensive boom across the mouth of the harbor and that his ships would be at too great risk if they did not go in very cautiously, sounding the channel as they advanced. He was only a little less critical of the alternate plan, which was that the English fleet should divide, and while the transports set the infantry ashore at the mouth of the Rio Jaina a few miles to the west of Santo Domingo, his warships would take up bombardment stations opposite the city and distract the Spaniards’s attention by shelling their outworks and disembarking a small diversionary force to the east. The main body of the English infantry would then advance from the landward side, knock down the city wall with their drakes and the mortar, and rush in with the sword. This plan was adopted, but it was ponderous and notably uninspired. Yet given a fair measure of cooperation, there was no reason why the English should not have overwhelmed Peñalva’s outnumbered and by now dispirited garrison.

But as matters turned out, everything went disastrously wrong. Penn himself elected to stay with the bombarding squadron, and so it was Vice-Admiral Goodson who was entrusted with the task of taking Venables, five regiments of foot, the artillery, the troop of horse, and the reformado company, and landing them near the mouth of the Rio Jaina, about six miles to the west of the city.

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