The "Bastimentos" was later the place where the British Admiral Francis Hosier anchored his fleet of 20 ships during the disastrous Blockade of Porto Bello in 1726/7, having been ordered by his government to refrain from attacking the port, which was largely undefended, but to wait for months unoccupied. The objective had been to prevent the Spanish treasure fleet sailing for home. The episode is described as follows in Percy's Reliques of 1765: "He (Hosier) accordingly arrived at the Bastimentos near Porto Bello, but being employed rather to overawe than to attack the Spaniards, with whom it was probably not our interest to go to war, he continued long inactive on that station, to his own great regret". Several of his letters to the government during this period are dated at "Bastimentos". About three thousand of his sailors died here of tropical disease and the bottoms of his ships were eaten by shipworm. The event was felt by the British people as a national humiliation, for which they largely blamed the government. Hosier's humiliation was later vindicated in November 1739 with Admiral Vernon's Capture of Porto Bello (with only 6 ships), which vindication raised the British public's joy to fever pitch, and inspired the writing of "Rule, Britannia! Britannia Rule the Waves!". Following Vernon's victory Richard Glover composed the poem and song "Admiral Hosier's Ghost", which relates the events and mentions the Bastimentos twice, as a place of "foul dishonour" and "shameful doom". A contemporary illustration shows the ghosts of Hosier and his 3,000 men rising from the water at Bastimentos to plead with Vernon, then anchored at rest after his victory, to remember their sad fate.