The following pages afford a circumstantial and, I believe, a fairly
true account of an incident much glossed over by our naval
historians. The subject is peculiarly interesting. At Santa Cruz, as at
Fontenoy, the Irish, whom harsh measures at home drove for protection to
more friendly lands, took ample share in the fighting which defeated
England's greatest sailor. Again, the short-sighted policy which sent to
the Crimea 20,000 British soldiers to play second instrument in concert
with 40,000 Frenchmen, thus lowering us in the eyes of Europe, made
Nelson oppose his 960 hands to more than eight times their number. The
day may come when the attack shall be repeated. Now that steam has
rendered fleets independent of south-west winds, it is to be hoped the
assailant will prefer day to night, so that his divisions can
communicate; that he will not land in the 'raging surf' of the ebb-tide, and that he will attack the almost defenceless south instead of the well-fortified north of the city.
Already the heroic Island had inflicted partial or total defeat upon
three English admirals. In April 1657
the Roundhead 'general at sea,' Admiral Sir Robert Blake, of
Bridgewater, attempted to cut out the Spanish galleons freighted with
Mexican gold and with the silver of Peru. Of these the principal were
the Santo-Cristo, the Jesus-Maria, the Santo Sacramento, La Concepcion, the San Juan, the Virgen de la Solitud, and the Nuestra Señora del Buen Socorro. This 'silver fleet' was moored under the guns of the 'chief castle,' San Cristobal, the mean work at the root of the mole. The English were preparing to board, when the Captain-General, D. Diego de Egues, whom our histories call 'Diagues,' ordered the fleet to be fired, after all the treasure had been housed in the fort. A steady fight lasted three hours, during which the wife of the brave Governor, D. Estevan de la Guerra, distinguished herself. 'I shall not be useless here,' she exclaimed when invited to leave the batteries; and this 'maid of Tenerife' continued to animate the garrison till the end. As was the case with his great successor, Roundhead Blake's failure proved to him far better than a success. For his francesada, or coup de tête, Nelson expected to lose his commission, instead of which some popular freak flung to him honour and honours. So Protector Cromwell sent a valuable diamond ring to his 'general at sea,' in token of esteem on his part and that of his Parliament. Our histories, relying on the fact that a few weak batteries were silenced, claim for the Admiral a positive victory, despite his losses--fifty killed and 500 wounded.
In 1706, during the Spanish war of succession, Admiral Jennings sailed
into Santa Cruz bay--the old Bay of Anaga or Anago--and lay off San
Cristobal
with twelve ships of the line. The Plaza was commanded, in the absence
of the Captain-General, by the Corregidor, D. Antonio de Ayala, who
assembled all the nobles in the castle's lower rooms and swore them to
loyalty. The English attempted to disembark, and were beaten back; whereupon, as under Nelson, they sent a parliamentary and summoned the island to surrender to the Archduke Charles of Austria. The envoy informed the Governor, who is described by Dampier as sitting in a low, dark, uncarpeted room, adorned only with muskets and pikes, that Philip V. had lost Gibraltar, that Cadiz and Minorca had nearly fallen, and that the American galleons in the port of Vigo had been burnt or captured by the English, whose army, entering Castile, had overrun Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia. The braves reply was, 'If Philip, our king, had lost his all in the Peninsula, these islands would still remain faithful to him.' And the castle guns did such damage that the Jennings squadron sailed away on the same evening.
The third expedition, detached by Admmiral Sir John Jervis, afterwards
Earl St. Vincent, to 'cut out a richly freighted Manilla ship,' also
resulted in a tremendous failure. Captain Brenton, to gratify national
complacency, grossly exaggerates in his 'Naval History' the difficulty
of the enterprise. 'Of all places which ever came under our inspection
none, we conceive, is more invulnerable to attack or more easily
defended than Teneriffe.' He forgets to mention its principal guard, the
valour of the inhabitants. And now to my translation.