Battle of Santiago de Cuba (1741)

The Battle of Santiago de Cuba was fought on 21 July 1741, and was one of the most decisive engagements of the War of Jenkins' Ear. This expedition resulted in a failed British attempt to capture Santiago de Cuba and it aggravated the misfortunes of Admiral Sir Edward Vernon.

Background
In the year 1741, after an unsuccessful attempt had been made on Cartagena by Admiral Vernon, he directed the fragments of his sickly and dispirited followers against the Island of Cuba. The south and east of Cuba were so little populated, and so far from the capital, Havana, that they might have made a permanent establishment there.

Vernon's expedition
The land forces consisted of the remnants of the troops from Cartagena, some 3,000 British and North American colonial troops augmented by 1,000 Jamaican blacks. Sir Vernon left Port Royal to capture Santiago de Cuba with the following ships:

HMS Boyne (1692) 80 (Flagship) HMS Cumberland (1710) 80 HMS Grafton (1709) 70 HMS Kent (1679) 70 HMS Montague (1654) 60 HMS Tilbury (1745) 60 HMS Worcester (1735) 60 HMS Chester (1708) 50 HMS Tiger 50 HMS Experiment (1740) 20 HMS Sheerness (1691) 20 HMS Shoreham (1694) 20 HMS Alderney (1735) (Bomb vessel) HMS Phaeton (1739) (Fireship) HMS Strombolo (1739) (Fireship) HMS Vesuvius (1739) (Fireship) HMS Bonetta (1732) (Sloop) HMS Tryton (1741) (Sloop) HMS Princess Royal (1739) (Hospital ship) HMS Scarborough (1739) (Hospital ship) HMS Pompey (Tender) 40 Transports bearing 4,000 troops under Wentworth

The battle
On the night of 4-5 August, the British Redcoats and a thousand black troops from Jamaica landed in three different beaches of the Guantanamo Bay. Without opposition, they marched against the village of La Catalina. However, the invaders, 65 miles short of their objective, slowed down three days later because of the growing concerns of their commander, Thomas Wentworth's.

Santiago's Governor Francisco Caxigal de la Vega, garrison commander Carlos Riva Agüero, and local militia Captain Pedro Guerrero had only 350 regulars and 600 militia to hand and so retreated from the British. Nevertheless, Wentworth's army became paralyzed by fatigue and disease, spending the next four months encamped, being sporadically raided by Spanish guerrillas. Vernon, disgusted at his colleague's inactivity, but unwilling to risk any part of the fleet against the town sent warships to cruise independently until Wentworth's sick list grew so long—2,260 soldiers being struck with fever by 5 December—that the expedition was re-embarked, setting sail at dawn on 9 December and returning to Port Royal ten days later.

Aftermath
Admiral Vernon's enterprise accomplished nothing but the loss of many of his soldiers and his own disgrace. Vernon was forced to return to Britain in 1742 and was expelled from the navy in 1746.