page_title: Battle of San Juan (1598)
section_title: Battle
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of San Juan (1598) / Battle
caption_attribution_description: English: The English assault during the 1598 Battle of San Juan.
context_page_description: The Battle of San Juan was a military and naval action on June 15, 1598 when an English force of 20 ships and 1,700 men under Sir George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, overwhelmed and took the Spanish fortress Castillo San Felipe del Morro and thus took the city of San Juan, Puerto Rico. They were able to hold the castle for 65 days but disease took its toll and the English forces left, but not before plundering and burning San Juan to the ground. It was this attack that proved to be the only one to ever break through and capture El Morro castle.
context_section_description: On the morning of 16 June, Cumberland disembarked 700 men at Cangrejos Bay twelve miles east of San Juan, then marched until nightfall. However one mile short of the city he and his men came up to a bridge known as San Antonio, the only land access to the San Juan islet. This was held by around 100 Spanish soldiers. They managed to repel the English assault who inflicted forty casualties, while the Earl of Cumberland himself almost drowned trying to cross the San Antonio channel. The Spaniards suffered only four casualties. The next morning, the English used their boats to outflank the Spanish position, disembarking at Escambrón Point while bombarding Boquerón Redoubt (called Red Fort by the English). The fort was bombarded into submission and the guns silenced with ease as the English deliberately grounded one of their ships in front of the fort which enabled point blank precision firing; by the evening most of the defenders had retreated. The English took possession of the area and consolidated while the rest of the force arrived; two Spanish vessels were seized as a result.
  On 18 June Cumberland with his forces advanced and then swept into San Juan's streets meeting little resistance; he found that some of the citizenry had already fled. The government officials and other residents had taken refuge in El Morro and 250 Spanish soldiers were ensconced within the Morro Citadel. Soon after the town had been occupied, the English had artillery ferried ashore from their fleet and a formal siege was instituted. Two days later the siege was under way and El Morro was bombarded from both land and sea while in the meantime Cumberland set about sacking the town. Knowing that the Spanish were short of supplies, the English preferred to lay siege to the castle of El Morro rather than destroy it.  After nearly 15 days huddled inside El Morro, short of food and ammunition and being constantly bombarded, the Spanish governor Antonio Mosquera requested terms on 30 June for a surrender. Cumberland refused this request and set his own terms for the Spanish surrender of which Mosquera eventually agreed to. He and his followers were repatriated to Cartagena several weeks later.
caption: The English assault
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image Copyright": "Public Domain, from the British Library's collections, 2013"}