Volume 114, The Siege and Capture of Havana, 1762,
ed. Prof. D. Syrett (1970)

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David Syrett came to study the British capture of Havana in 1762 as a forgotten campaign of the Seven Years’ War, which he saw as having been overshadowed in the historiography of the war by the events that had taken place at Louisbourg, Quebec, Quiberon Bay, Minden, and Plassey. Yet, as he showed through this collection of documents, Havana was the largest combined operation of the Seven Years’ War. It was arguably also the most complex and difficult operation of that war. It involved making an opposed landing with an army of 16,000 men on a defended coast from a fleet that first had to pass through treacherous waters as well as to pass several well-defended enemy island positions to get to its objective, the strongest fortress in the Americas. Havana was the centre of Spanish military power in the Caribbean, the best naval base and harbor in the region, the rendezvous point for the homeward bound flotas carrying silver from the South American mines, the strategic centre for Spain’s communications with her American possessions, and a place that was reputedly a rich target for booty for an enemy to seize.

The volume is divided into three major parts that divide the collection into chronological segments. The first part, beginning in January 1762, deals with the broad strategic and logistical planning, the embarkation, and the departure of the fleet commanded by Vice-Admiral Sir George Pocock, with the embarked land forces under the command of Lieutenant-General the Earl of Albemarle, during the first week of March 1762. 

The second part, deals with simultaneously events in the West Indies from January 1762 and with the arrival of the fleet at Barbados in early April, then moving on to Martinique. During the first few months of 1762, British authorities in the West Indies had obtained documents that indicated that the French were planning a possible invasion of Jamaica with forces based at Cap François on San Domingue and joined by Spanish forces from Cuba. In order to thwart this plan, the British governor and Council at Jamaica requested assistance from naval forces already in the West Indies under Rear-Admiral George Brydges Rodney to engage the French squadron at sea or to blockade the French at Cap François. As this was going on, orders arrived from London for Rodney to hold all forces in the region in readiness for the impending attack against Havana, placing Rodney in a serious dilemma.  Rodney decided that the safety of Jamaica cane first, leaving Pocock’s small force exposed to attack, and ordered Commodore Sir James Douglas to proceed to Jamaica. Douglas, however, saw that the situation was changing and decided that the French were not going to attack Jamaica. On his own initiative, he blockaded the French at Cap François rather than to remain at Jamaica, as Rodney had ordered. Douglas’s decision proved to be an essential factor in the subsequent British attack on Havana, preventing French interference.  The mater was resolved in early May, after Pocock and Albemarle’s forces moved on from Martinique in early May, and joined up on 25 May at sea off the northwest coast of San Domingue with overwhelming local military and naval force.  From this point, the major problem confronting Pocock was to navigate his fleet of warships and troop ships through the Old Bahama Channel without qualified local pilots.

Successful in their approach, Pocock’s arrival off Havana on 6 June 1762 surprised the Spanish, who were caught off guard not having yet received the official news that Spain and Britain were at war.  Although unaware of Pocock’s arrival in the Caribbean, the Spanish believed that El Morro castle, defending the entrance to Havana, made the city and harbor impregnable.  Although British intelligence about the defenses of Havana was very limited, British forces conducted a very successful amphibious siege operation against a strong and well-defended fortress that resulted in a Spanish surrender. Yet, the British operation was not without its failures. The protracted campaign that lasted between 7 June and 18 October 1762 saw British forces ravaged by tropical disease. Of the 5,366 men lost in the campaign, 4,708 had died from disease, while numerous others were incapacitated and later died from disease.

The volume is a compilation of contemporary documents, selected from the Albemarle archives at the East Suffolk Record Office, the Pocock Papers at the Huntington Library, the Douglas and Keppel Papers at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, The Royal Archives at Windsor Castle, and The National Archives classes of Admiralty, Colonial Office, War Office papers, as well as the Rodney Papers.  A final document, forming in the appendix, was written in 1800 by Lieutenant-General David Dundas, who served as aide-de-camp to Major-General George Augustus Armstrong during the 1762 siege. It provides valuable insight that documents contemporary memory and professional judgment on the operation.

Contents

Further Reading

Anon., An Authentic Journal of the Siege of Havana by an Officer (London, 1762)
Christian Buchet, Marine, économie et société. Un exemple d’interaction: l’avitaillement de la Royal Navy durant la guerre de sept ans. (Paris, 1999).
Julian S. Corbett, England in the Seven Years’ War: A study in Combined Strategy (London, 1907), vol. II, pp. 246-284.
Edward Everett Hale, ed., The Capture of Havana in 1762 by the Forces of George III. (Boston, 1898)
Francis Russell Hart, The Siege of Havana, 1762. (Boston, 1932)
Francis Russell Hart, “Spanish Documents relating to the siege of Havana, 1762,” Proceedings, Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. lxiv (1932), pp. 435-39.  
Sonia Keppel, Three Brothers at Havana, 1762. (Salisbury, 1981)
Joaquín Llaverías, Papelessobre la toma de la Habana por los Ingleses en 1762. (Havana, 1948)
Thomas Mante, A History of the Late War in North America and the Islands of the West Indies. (London, 1772)
Alan Russett, Dominic Serres, R.A., 1719-1793: War Artist to the Navy. (Woodbridge, 2001)
David Syrett, “American Provincials and the Havana Campaign of 1762,” New York History, vol. xlix (October 1968), pp. 375-90
David Syrett, “The British Landing at Havana: An Example of an Eighteenth Century Combined Operation,” Mariners Mirror, vol. 55 (August 1969), pp. 325-31
David Syrett, “The Methodology of British Amphibious Operations during the Seven Years’ and American Wars,” Mariners Mirror, vol. 59 (August 1972), pp. 269-80
David Syrett, ed., The Rodney Papers; Selections from the Papers of Admiral Lord Rodney. Volume 1, 1742-63. Publications of the Navy Records Society, volume 148. (London, 2005), pp. 432-487

Extracts

Editor

David Syrett (1939-2004) was Distinguished Professor of History at Queens College of the City University of New York in Flushing, New York, where he had been appointed instructor in 1966, became full professor in 1980 and distinguished professor in 2000. The son of the well-known historian of the early American republic and editor of the Papers of Alexander Hamilton, Harold C. Syrett (d. 1984), David Syrett was graduated from Columbia University in 1961. After completing his M.A. at Columbia in 1964, he went on the University of London, where he completed his Ph.D. in 1966 with a thesis on “Shipping and the American War. The author of numerous works, he edited three titles in the Navy Records Society series (Havana; Battle of the Atlantic; Rodney Papers) as well as the first volume in the Occasional Publications series, Commissioned Sea Officers of the Royal Navy, 1660-1815 with Robert L. DiNardo. At various times, he served as a member of Council of the Navy Records Society and of the Society’s Publications Committee.