The Raid on Nassau (or Battle of New Providence) took place in February 1720 when a Spanish force attempted to assault the British settlement of Nassau during the War of the Quadruple Alliance. [3]
The Kingdom of Great Britain was a sovereign state in western Europe from 1 May 1707 to 1 January 1801. The state came into being following the Treaty of Union in 1706, ratified by the Acts of Union 1707, which united the kingdoms of England and Scotland to form a single kingdom encompassing the whole island of Great Britain and its outlying islands, with the exception of the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. The unitary state was governed by a single parliament and government that was based in Westminster. The former kingdoms had been in personal union since James VI of Scotland became King of England and King of Ireland in 1603 following the death of Elizabeth I, bringing about the "Union of the Crowns". Since its inception the kingdom was in legislative and personal union with Ireland and after the accession of George I to the throne of Great Britain in 1714, the kingdom was in a personal union with the Electorate of Hanover.
Nassau is the capital and commercial centre of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. The city has an estimated population of 274,400 as of 2016, just over 70% of the population of the country (≈391,000). Lynden Pindling International Airport, the major airport for the Bahamas, is located about 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) west of Nassau city centre, and has daily flights to major cities in Canada, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom and the United States. The city is located on the island of New Providence, which functions much like a business district. Nassau is the site of the House of Assembly and various judicial departments and was considered historically to be a stronghold of pirates. The city was named in honour of William III of England, Prince of Orange-Nassau.
The War of the Quadruple Alliance (1718-1720) was caused by Spanish attempts to recover territorial losses agreed by the 1713 Peace of Utrecht. Primarily conducted in Italy, it included minor engagements in the Americas and Northern Europe, as well as the Spanish-backed 1719 Jacobite Rising.
The Spanish force of 1,200 was largely drawn from Cubans and commanded by Francisco Cornejo. The threat of Spanish invasion had bedeviled New Providence for the past year, halting settlement on the island and prompting the construction of Fort Nassau, with 50 guns and 250 defenders. [4]
New Providence is the most populous island in The Bahamas, containing more than 70% of the total population. It is the location of the national capital city of Nassau, whose boundaries are coincident with the island; it had a population of 246,329 at the 2010 Census; the latest estimate (2016) is 274,400. The island was originally under Spanish control following Christopher Columbus's discovery of the New World, but the Spanish government showed little interest in developing the island. Nassau, the island's largest city, was formerly known as Charles-town, but it was burned to the ground by the Spanish in 1684. It was laid out and renamed Nassau in 1695 by Nicholas Trott, the most successful Lord Proprietor, in honor of the Prince of Orange-Nassau who became William III of England. The three branches of Bahamian Government: the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary, are all headquartered on New Providence. New Providence functions as the main commercial hub of The Bahamas. It is also home to more than 400 banks and trust companies, and its hotels and port account for more than two-thirds of the four million-plus tourists who visit The Bahamas annually. Other settlements on New Providence include Grants Town, Bain Town, Fox Hill, Adelaide, Yamacraw, South Beach, Coral Harbour, Lyford Cay, Paradise Island, Sea Breeze, Centreville, The Grove (South) and The Grove, Cable Beach, Delaporte, Gambier, Old Fort Bay, and Love Beach.
The fort was a fort in Nassau, Bahamas, first built in 1697 and lasted for nearly two hundred years with a rich legacy of history until it was finally demolished in 1897. It was located on the north side of Marlborough St., on the site of the current British Colonial Hilton Nassau. Remnants of the old walls can be seen on the hotel grounds. For many years it was the only fort in Nassau.
Initial plans for an attack on the city from Nassau Harbour were forestalled by the discovery of two British guard ships in the harbour: the governor's flagship, East Indiaman Delicia (armed with 32 guns) and the 24-gun frigate HMS Flamborough. Spain's heavy ships of the line sat too deep for the harbour's shallow waters. Cornejo opted to bypass the city and the Spanish squadron crept ahead east along Hog's Island, landing three columns and seizing large amounts of plunder before being repelled by Governor Woodes Rogers's 500 militia. The Spanish ships remained in the bay for some time before retiring. [2]
A guard ship is a warship assigned as a stationary guard in a port or harbour, as opposed to a coastal patrol boat which serves its protective role at sea.
East Indiaman was a general name for any sailing ship operating under charter or licence to any of the East India Companies of the major European trading powers of the 17th through the 19th centuries. The term is used to refer to vessels belonging to the Danish, Dutch (Oostindiëvaarder), English, French, Portuguese, or Swedish (ostindiefarare) East India companies.
A frigate is a type of warship, having various sizes and roles over the last few centuries.
Francisco Cornejo and José Cordero eventually set sail relatively unharmed, with over 100 captured slaves. Woodes Rogers, unable to pay the garrison and his health failing, set sail for England soon afterward. The governor had expended his personal fortune on Nassau's defenses, which had been the source of considerable anxiety and depression. Britain and Spain negotiated peace the following year.
The Siege of St. Augustine was a military engagement that took place during June–July 1740. It was a part of the much larger conflict known as the War of Jenkins' Ear, between Great Britain and Spain.
The Blockade of Porto Bello was a failed British naval action against the Spanish port of Porto Bello in present-day Panama between 1726 and 1727 as part of the Anglo-Spanish War. The British were attempting to blockade the port to stop valuable treasure convoys leaving for Spain. After months spent on the ineffective and costly operation, during which not a single British shot was fired, on Admiralty orders, the British finally withdrew, with the loss from tropical disease of some 3,000 to 4,000 men from a complement of 4,750.
The First Cevallos expedition was a military action between September 1762 and April 1763, by Spanish colonial forces led by Don Pedro Antonio de Cevallos, Governor of Buenos Aires, against Portuguese colonial forces in the Banda Oriental area on the aftermath of the Spanish and French Invasion of Portugal (1762), as part of the Seven Years' War.
HMS Salisbury was a 50-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Chatham Dockyard to the dimensions of the 1706 Establishment, and launched on 3 July 1707. In autumn of 1707, she brought the body of admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell from St Mary's to Plymouth prior to his burial in Westminster Abbey.
Michiel Andrieszoon was a Dutch buccaneer who served as lieutenant to Captain Laurens de Graaf. He commanded the le Tigre, which had a 300-man crew and was armed with between 30-36 guns. He is occasionally referred to in English as Michel or Mitchell, and is often erroneously given the nickname "Bréha Michiel".
The Battle of Roatán was an American War of Independence battle fought on March 16, 1782, between British and Spanish forces for control of Roatán, an island off the Caribbean coast of present-day Honduras.
The Battle of La Guaira or La Guayra, took place on 2 March 1743 in the Caribbean, off the coast of La Guaira, present day Venezuela. La Guaira was a port of the Royal Gipuzkoan Company of Caracas, whose ships had rendered great assistance to the Spanish navy during War of Jenkins' Ear in carrying troops, arms, stores and ammunition from Spain to her colonies, and its destruction would be a severe blow both to the Company and the Spanish Government. A British expeditionary fleet under Sir Charles Knowles was defeated, and the expedition ended in failure. 600 men were killed, among whom was the captain of HMS Burford, and many of the ships were badly damaged or lost. Sir Charles was therefore unable to proceed to Puerto Cabello until he had refitted.
The Battle of Puerto Cabello was an attack on a Spanish colonial port during the War of Jenkins' Ear on 16 April 1743 and resulted in another defeat of British forces.
The invasion of Cuba took place between 4–5 August and 9 December 1741 during the War of Jenkins' Ear. A combined army and naval force under the command of Admiral Edward Vernon and Major-General Thomas Wentworth arrived off Cuba and fortified positions around their landing site at Cumberland Bay. Despite facing no serious opposition, neither commander felt prepared to advance on the Spanish settlement at Santiago de Cuba. Harassed by guerrilla raids and with a mounting sick list, the British finally evacuated the island after several months of inactivity.
The Battle of St. Kitts or St. Cristopher was a successful Spanish expedition that seized the islands of Saint Kitts and Nevis from the English and French during the Anglo-Spanish War (1625–30).
The Capture of the Bahamas took place in May 1782 during the Anglo-Spanish War when a Spanish force under the command of Juan Manuel Cajigal arrived on the island of New Providence near Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas. The British commander at Nassau, John Maxwell decided to surrender the island without a fight when confronted by the superior force.
The Battle of Rio Nuevo took place between 25 and 27 June 1658 on the island of Jamaica between Spanish forces under Cristóbal Arnaldo Isasi and English forces under governor Edward D'Oyley. In the battle lasting over two days the invading Spanish were routed. It is the largest battle to be fought on Jamaica.
The Capture of the Bahamas took place in April 1783, late in the Anglo-Spanish War, when a Loyalist expedition under the command of Andrew Deveaux set out to retake the Bahamas from the Spanish. The expedition was successful and Nassau fell without a shot being fired. It was one of the last actions of the entire war.
Part of the Eighty Years' War, the Capture of Saint Martin was a Spanish naval expedition against the island of Saint Martin occupied by the Dutch Republic and administered as part of the Dutch Antilles. The island, claimed by Spain since Christopher Columbus' second voyage to the West Indies in 1493, lies a few hundred miles east of Puerto Rico. The capture eliminated the presence of Dutch privateers in the island, weakening Dutch privateering and commerce in the Caribbean.
The Raid on Nassau, on the Bahamian island of New Providence, was a privately raised Franco-Spanish expedition against the English taking place in October 1703, during the War of the Spanish Succession; it was a Franco-Spanish victory, leading to Nassau's brief occupation, then its destruction. The joint Bourbon invasion was led by Blas Moreno Mondragón and Clause Le Chesnaye, with the attack focusing on Nassau, the capital of the English Bahamas, an important base of privateering for English corsairs combating the privateering of others in the Cuban and Saint Domingue's Caribbean seas. The town of Nassau was quickly taken and sacked, plundered and burnt down. The fort of Nassau was dismantled, and the English governor, with all the English soldiers were carried off prisoners. A year later, Sir Edward Birch, the new English governor, upon landing in Nassau, was so distraught at the ruin he found, that he returned to England after only a few months, without "unfurling his company-issued commission".
The capture of Demerara and Essequibo was a French military expedition carried out in January 1782 as part of the Anglo-French War. In 1781, Admiral Lord Rodney sent two sloops from his fleet at Sint Eustatius to take possession of the Dutch colonies of Essequibo and Demerara. In 1782, the French successfully took possession of these settlements, compelling British Governor Robert Kinston to surrender. The Peace of Paris, which occurred in 1783, restored these territories to the Dutch.
The Attack on Saint Martin was a failed attempt by the Dutch Republic to recapture the island and former base of the Dutch West India Company (WIC) from the Spanish. In 1633 the Spanish had invaded Saint-Martin and Anguilla, driving off the French and Dutch inhabitants. The French and Dutch banded together to repel the Spanish and it was during a 1644 sea battle that the Dutch commander Peter Stuyvesant, later the governor of New Amsterdam, unsuccessfully besieged Fort Amsterdam and was forced to retreat with the loss of hundreds of men. A stray Spanish cannonball shattered his leg, which had to be amputated. But luck was on the Dutch side, and when the Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Netherlands ended, the Spanish no longer needed a Caribbean base and just sailed away in 1648.
The Capture of Port Egmont on 10 June 1770 was a Spanish expedition that seized the British fort of Port Egmont on the Falkland Islands, garrisoned since 1765. The incident nearly led to an outbreak of war between Great Britain and Spain, known as the Falklands Crisis.
The raid on Cartagena was the successful counter-attack against vessels sent to defend the city of Cartagena de Indias and the subsequent blockade of the city by Laurens de Graaf and his pirate compatriots.