March 31, 2015 

It is April, 1797. The British are at the gates of San Juan. They are led by General Ralph Abercromby (sometimes spelled Abercrombie), the hero of the invasion of Trinidad. Things look bleak for the defenders. It will take a miracle to repel the invaders.

Spain had until recently been an ally of the British, but was defeated by the French in War of the Pyrenees, in 1795. The Peace of Basel, which ended that war, led, in 1796, to an alliance between France and Spain, and thus a state of war with England. France, after the French revolution of 1792, had been fighting the so-called French Revolutionary Wars, which pitted the French and allies against the European monarchies. The wars took on a global character as the wars continued. As had often been the case, the Antilles, Leeward and Windward Islands became pawns in the broader European struggles.

Arercromby was the military commander of the British forces in the West Indies. He had begun his military career in 1756, as an officer with the Third Dragoon Guards, serving in Europe during the Seven Years War. While there, he was able to study the tactics of Frederick the Great, studies which served him well in his career. By 1781, he had become colonel of the King’s Irish Infantry. Dissatisfied with his government’s treatment of the American colonists, he retired, at half pay, and became a Member of Parliament, representing his district of Clackmannanshire.

Abercromby was recalled to active duty when France declared war on England, in 1793. He served in the Netherlands, commanding a brigade under the Duke of York. He was wounded at Nijmegen and, after medical treatment, was appointed, in 1795, the commander of British forces in the West Indies. He began his Caribbean escapades by, in 1796, invading Grenada. This action was to put down a revolt by slaves and former French colonists, led by Julien Fedon, against British rule, which had been restored from the French under terms of the Treaty of Versailles, in 1783.

After a brief excursion to the Dutch settlements of Demerara and Essequibo in South America, the British West Indies forces turned their attention to Trinidad. Rear Admiral Henry Harvey was in command of a fleet of four sail of the line, several frigates and sloops, and transports carrying the invasion troops, commanded by Abercromby.

Trinidad had been a Spanish colony since the third voyage of Christopher Columbus, in 1498. The population was largely French, from Martinique. For whatever reason, Trinidad lagged behind other islands in adopting the plantation system, especially as compared to nearby Tobago and the larger Jamaica. It was, in 1797, defended by a naval force about the same size as the British invaders, with troops in fortified positions around the island. In particular, the Spanish naval forces included four ships of the line and one frigate: San Vincente (84 guns), Gallardo (74 guns), Arrogante (74 guns), San Damaso (74 guns), and Santa Cecilia (36 guns), under the command of Rear-Admiral Don Sebastian Ruiz de Apodaca.

Now, anybody with any military knowledge at all will agree that landing troops on a hostile shore is one of the most difficult tasks a military force can undertake. One need only recall the World War Two landings at Salerno, Omaha Beach, Tarawa and Iwo Jima to be reminded of that. It should also be noted that the Spanish were proficient at amphibious warfare, both on offense and defense. In fact, Spain, under Philip II, was the first European power to establish specialized troops trained in landing operations, complete with barges to land horse drawn artillery, and special row boats equipped with small cannon. The Spanish used their Royal Marines in the 1560s to recover Malta from the Ottoman Turks and, in 1583, in the Azores against an Anglo-French-Portuguese garrison.

The Spanish were no slouches on defense, either. In 1741, a smaller Spanish garrison repulsed a British invasion force of 24,000 men, 2,000 guns, and 186 ships, at Cartagena de Indias, in present day Colombia.

Rear Admiral Harvey and General Abercromby thus had every right to expect a robust Spanish defense of Trinidad. Harvey maneuvered his fleet to block the Spanish ships, and Abercromby’s forces scouted for potential landing sites. They were both surprised to see the Spanish ships begin to burn. The Spanish torched them, and in addition withdrew their forces from the fortified Caspar Grande battery. The next day, the 14^th Regiment of Foot occupied the island, without opposition, and on February 20, 1797, Governor Don Jose Maria Chacon surrendered the island to Abercromby without any effort at defense.

The British thus gained a new Crown Colony, with Spanish laws and a French speaking population. Of course, the Spanish might have known what they were doing. Trinidad never fully embraced the plantation n system, and grew slowly compared to other British possessions, in part because of a chronic labor shortage. At the time of abolition in the British colonies, in 1834, Trinidad had, according to her census, about 17,500 slaves, while Jamaica, twice the size of Trinidad, counted 370,000 slaves.

In any case, Harvey and Abercromby turned their attentions to Puerto Rico. The Puerto Ricans observed the British invaders off the northern coast on the morning of April 17, 1797. The Puerto Rican Governor, Brigadier General Ramón de Castro, called his military leaders together and they enacted their defensive plan, placing troop contingents at several points along the shore. The defenders were Puerto Rican militia, with no main force Spanish troops available. The British forces, which included German mercenaries, did manage to land, but the navy could not force their way into the harbor against the guns of Castillo San Felipe el Morro. The Spanish destroyed the San Antonio Bridge connecting Miramar to San Juan, on Friday April 21, and the British began their siege from the land. On April 24, Sergeant Francisco Diaz led a party of 70 men to attack a British battery. They forced 300 British soldiers to retreat and captured fourteen prisoners before they were forced back by a British counter attack.

Fighting, including artillery duels and infantry skirmishes, continued for the next several days and conditions within the walls of San Juan were getting desperate. Juan Bautista de Zengotita y Bengoa, the Bishop of San Juan, ordered Rogativa (prayer processions) to be conducted around the island asking for God’s help in defeating the British. On the night of April 30, the Bishop, and the women and children remaining in San Juan, conducted a Rogativa which, with torches and accompanied by church bells, wound its way through the streets of San Juan. According to long standing legend, Abercromby, watching from a ship off shore, thought the procession represented reinforcements from the interior of the island to San Juan. In any case, the British re-embarked their troops, set sail, and disappeared over the horizon. One of the largest invasions of Spanish territory in the New World was thus defeated by the Puerto Rican militia and, legend has it, the effects of a prayer procession.

What would the British do with a military leader who managed to conquer an undefended island and then leave his siege of San Juan at the sight of a prayer procession? Promote him, of course! Abercromby was promoted to Lieutenant General and appointed Commander in Chief of the forces in Ireland, and then Scotland. He travelled with the Duke of York to try to regain Egypt from France, and was wounded during the Battle of Alexandria, on March 21, 1801. He died seven days later.

I wonder if Gilbert and Sullivan had Abercromby in mind when they wrote of a Major General in their opera buffa, The Pirates of Penzance, in 1879.

I am the very model of a modern Major-General,
I’ve information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;
I’m very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical
About binomial theorem I’m teeming with a lot o’ news;
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.

In 1971, the New Zealand artist Lindsay Dean completed four bronze statues commemorating the prayer procession. They are located just inside the walls of Old San Juan, near the San Juan gate, in an area now known as the Plazuela de la Rogativa. It is said the artist buried toys under the statues in honor of his child, who died at an early age.

Apparently, in late April, San Juan stages a recreation of the siege, with participants in period uniforms. I’ve not seen that, as we head back up north before then.

The images in this post are all mine, doctored to varying degrees with Adobe Photoshop®.