Two months were spent at Barbadoes, which might have incomparably better been employed in assailing the Spaniards before they were ready. At last, on the 31st of March, the expedition got under way. It proceeded by Antigua, Montserrat, Nevis, and St. Kitts to the south-eastern end of Hispaniola, and appeared before the town of San Domingo on the 13th of April. San Domingo stands on the western side of a little river called the Ozama. It is in the middle of a large bay, some twenty-eight miles broad and some ten miles deep. The coast is low, rocky, and beaten by a formidable surf. Looked at from the sea, the spray thrown up from the waves was like the smoke of cannon fringing the beach. Close to the town on the west side was a fort. To the west of the fort, and at a distance of some five miles from the town, another river, called by the Spaniards Jaina, and by us Hina, falls into the sea. When there is a dead calm, or a land breeze from the north, it is possible to land here, but at other times the surf is too dangerous for boats. These conditions made it necessary to disembark the soldiers to westward and leeward of the town at some distance. In the West Indies the trade wind, or true breeze, always blows from the east. Beyond Cape Nisao, the western extremity of San Domingo Bay, there are a few landing-places in the surf-beaten coast. At one of these, perhaps Catalina Bay, Venables disembarked with the bulk of the expedition on the 14th of April. In the meantime Penn remained, with the greater part of the fleet and two regiments of soldiers, in front of San Domingo. The object of retaining these two corps was to land them at the mouth of the Jaina, to co-operate with Venables when he had got so far. They had with them stores and scaling ladders for the purpose of attacking the town.
The story of what came of these imposing preparations is happily all but unparalleled in English history. Venables began his march on the day after landing, in circumstances of the most lamentable kind, if he is to be believed.
"Our men, the last fortnight at sea, had bad bread, and little of it or other victuals, notwithstanding General Penn's order, so that they were very weak at landing; and some, instead of three days' provision at landing, had but one, with which they marched five days, and therefore fell to eat limes, oranges, lemons, &c., which put them into fluxes and fevers. Of the former, I had my share for near a fortnight, with cruel gripings that I could scarce stand."