Occupation And Evacuation Of San Juan By Lord George Cumberland

Puerto Rico and his Majesty's treasure were now safe. When there was

no longer any fear of the enemy's return, haste was made to reembark

the money and get rid of General Sancho and Tello and their men who

were fast consuming the island's scanty resources.



Two years after Drake's ineffectual attack on the island another

English fleet, with a large body of troops under the orders of Lord

George Cumberland, came to Puerto Rico. A landing was effected at

Cangrejos (the present Santurce). The bridge leading to the capital

was not then fortified, but its passage was gallantly disputed by

Governor Antonio Mosquera, an old soldier of the war in Flanders. The

English were far superior in numbers and armament, and Mosquera had to

fall back. Captain Serralta, the brothers John and Simon Sanabria, and

other natives of the island, greatly distinguished themselves in this

action. The English occupied the capital and the forts without much

more opposition. An epidemic of dysentery and yellow fever carried off

400 Englishmen in less than three months and bid fair to exterminate

the whole invading force, so that, to save his troops, the English

commander was obliged to evacuate the island, which he did on the 23d

of November. He carried with him 70 pieces of artillery of all sizes

which he found in the fortifications. The city itself he left unhurt,

except that he took the church-bells and organ and carried off an

artistically sculptured marble window in one of the houses which had

taken his fancy.



Mr. Brau mentions some documents in the Indian archives of Spain, from

which it appears that another invasion of Puerto Rico took place a

year after Cumberland's departure. On that occasion the governor and

the garrison were carried off as prisoners, but as there was a cruel

epidemic still raging in the island at the time the English did not

stay.



The death of Philip II (September 13, 1598) and of his inveterate

enemy, Queen Elizabeth (March 24, 1603), brought the war with England

to a close. The ambassador of Philip III in London negotiated a treaty

of peace with James I, which was signed and ratified in the early part

of 1604.



So ended the sixteenth century in Boriquen. If the dictum of Las

Casas, that the island at the century's beginning was "as populous as

a beehive and as lovely as an orchard," was but a rhetorical figure,

there is no gainsaying the fact that at the time of Ponce's landing it

was thickly peopled, not only that part occupied by the Spaniards but

the whole island, with a comparatively innocent, simple, and

peaceably disposed native race. The end of the century saw them no

more. The erstwhile garden was an extensive jungle. The island's

history during these hundred years was condensed into the one word

"strife." All that the efforts of the king and his governors had been

able to make of it was a penal settlement, a presidio with a

population of about 400 inhabitants, white, black, and mongrel. The

littoral was an extensive hog-and cattle-ranch, with here and there a

patch of sugar-cane; there was no commerce. There were no roads.

The people, morally, mentally, and materially poor, were steeped in

ignorance and vice. Education there was none. The very few who aspired

to know, went to la Espanola to obtain an education. The few spiritual

wants of the people were supplied by monks, many of them as ignorant

and bigoted as themselves. War and pestilence and tempest had united

to wipe the island from the face of the earth, and the very name of

"Rich Port," given to it without cause or reason, must have sounded in

the ears of the inhabitants as a bitter sarcasm on their wretched

condition.