The Battle of Cartagena
Admiral Vernon to his wife

Princess Caroline, in the Harbour of Cartagena, 31 March 1741

After the glorious success it has pleased Almighty God so wonderfully to favour us with, Whose manifold mercies I hope I shall never be unmindful of, I cannot omit laying hold of the opportunity of an express I am sending home to acquaint you of the joyful news, though in my present hurries I have no leisure to enter into many particulars....

The first attack was by three of my 80-gun ships on the forts of St. Jago and St. Philip, lying without Boca Chica Castle, to secure a descent; and we drove the enemy out of them in less than an hour, and secured a descent to the army, and without their having so much as a single musket-shot fired at them. And my gallant sailors twice stormed and took two batteries on the opposite side of the harbour; the one of fifteen, the other of five 24-pounders, which the general complained of to me galled his army; they having remounted guns and repaired it after our first destroying it, as it lay well to play on our land battery.

On the propitious 25th March, the day I took charge, the General sent me word he intended to storm Boca Chica Castle; upon which, before the time he proposed, I sent all my boats manned and armed to land at those destroyed batteries a third time, for making a diversion on that side, to favour their storming it. But the enemy was under such consternation, that our troops marched into the castle over the breach without having a single shot fired at them, and about ten at night my gallant sailors stormed St. Joseph's fort without the ceremony of a breach, from whence, all the first of the night, the enemy had been firing partridge-shot at our men through the bushes, but with little injury to them; but they would not stand the assault, but deserted the fort, leaving only three drunken Spaniards behind them. Flushed with this success, my officers finding the Spaniards burning and sinking their ships, part of the boats were detached, to try what could be saved; and they boarded and took the Spanish admiral's ship, the Gallicia, with the flag flying, and in her the captain of the ship, the captain of the marines, an ensign, and 60 men, who, not having boats to escape, gave us the opportunity of saving this ship, which they had orders to sink likewise. Besides the admiral's ship taken, of 70 guns, they burnt the St. Philip, of 80 guns, and sunk the St. Carlos and Africa, of 60 guns each, across the channel; and they have this day sunk the Conquistador and Dragon, of 60 guns each, the only remaining men-of-war here, as they have done all the galleons and other vessels lying above Castillo Grande near five leagues higher up the harbour.

I have only time to add, it has pleased Almighty God to preserve me in good health, to go through all these glorious fatigues, and in a full disposition to push this beginning with all possible vigour, to humble the proud Spaniards, and bring them to repentance for all the injuries and long-practised depredations on us.

I have only time to send you my sincerest love and affection for you and blessing to our dear boys; and with services to all our good neighbours, and honest Will Fisher.

H. Moorhouse. Letters of English Seamen. (London: 1910).