Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/472

458 strongest part of the fort, where they were at the same time exposed to the fire of the town. Whilst they were thus standing under a murderous fire, they discovered, to their consternation, that their scaling ladders were too short. The attack had been commenced under the obscurity of night, but it was now broad day-light, and a prudent commander would have drawn off his forces for a better opportunity. But the escalade was persisted in: they remained splicing their ladders, and a detachment of Grenadiers, under colonel Grant, reached the top of a rampart; but Grant was instantly killed, and the grenadiers hurled back over the wall. Still, the bull-dog spirit of the English made them persist in this desperate attempt, till six hundred, that is, half of them, lay dead, when they drew off.

All this time the great admiral Vernon, as the opposition delighted to call him, in disparagement of all the commanders favourable to government, lay still with his ships, and afforded no assistance to the land troops. When Wentworth bitterly complained of this, to show that it was impossible to operate on the town from the harbour, Vernon sent into the inner harbour the Galicia, a Spanish ship which had been taken. It was sent in before day, with sixteen guns mounted on one side as a floating battery, and manned by volunteers from different ships, under captain Hoar. This ship kept up a cannonade on the town for several hours, producing little effect, and fired on from the town with as little. The men were then brought off in boats, the Galicia's cable was cut, and she was suffered to run upon a shoal, where she soon filled. This Vernon held to be a triumphant proof that there was not depth of water in the inner harbour to enable a squadron to act on the town effectually; but Smollett, who was present, says that this was ridiculous, for that a little farther to the left he might have stationed four or five of his largest ships abreast, within pistol shot of the walls; and that, had this been done simultaneously with the attack of San Lazaro, the town would, in all likelihood, have been taken.

The troops were now hastily re-embarked; the unhealthy season was at its height, and the men were swept away by fever more rapidly than they had been mowed down on land. The heavy rains had set in, and the troops in a few days were reduced to one half their number. "Nothing," says Smollett, "was to be heard but complaints and execrations, the groans of the dying, and the service for the dead. Nothing was seen but objects of woe and images of dejection. The conductor's of this unfortunate expedition agreed in nothing but the expediency of a speedy retreat from this scene of misery and disgrace. Admiral Vernon, instead of undertaking any enterprise which might have retrieved the honour of the British arms, set sail from Jamaica with the forces in July, and anchored in the south part of Cuba in a bay, on which he bestowed the appellation of Cumberland Harbour."

Here the remains of that fine fleet and army, capable of achieving the most brilliant conquests under able commanders, were suffered to corrode away under the influence of inactivity, the season, bad salted provisions, and excess of rum. When they landed, the twelve thousand men were already reduced to three thousand, and they soon fell away to two thousand. To reinforce them, one thousand negroes were landed from Jamaica and drilled, but nothing was attempted, for the small town of St. Jago, even, was deemed too strong for their diminished body. In November they were re-embarked and carried back to Jamaica.

Unfortunately, the government, probably before they were informed of the miserable mismanagement of this costly armament, sent out four more ships of war and three thousand more soldiers. These only followed their predecessors to a miserable death, for Vernon, as if struck with paralysis of mind, attempted no new enterprise, which might have saved his troops, by leading them into a healthier region, and by the mere change to enterprise and activity. As the dreadful news began to reach England, the public became outrageous in their condemnation of Vernon, from whom they had been taught to expect so much, and discovered too late that they had been deceived in his character. He endeavoured to cast the blame on Wentworth, and had the hardihood to boast in his dispatches to the duke of Newcastle, that, had the combined command of the expedition been left to him, he would have taken both Carthagena and St. Jago with far less loss than they had suffered altogether. His boasts could, however, no longer impose on the people at large.

The conduct of Vernon, though he had been the idol of the opposition and not of the ministry, as it became known, increased enormously the unpopularity of Walpole. Though he had literally been forced into the war by the opposition, the whole of its disasters were charged not on them but on him; and they did not hesitate to throw from themselves upon him the odium of all its failures. The general election which now came on was seized upon to load Walpole with all the weight of the unsuccessful war. The duchess of Marlborough, Pulteney, and the prince of Wales raised funds to outbribe the master of corruption himself. They incurred heavy debts to complete his ruin, and as the news of the miserable issue of the expedition to the Spanish settlements came in, numbers of those who had been returned to parliament as friends of the ministry, turned round and joined the opposition in violent denunciations of the mismanagement of the war. Lord Chesterfield, whilst these transactions had been progressing, had hastened on to Avignon, and taking up his quarters with the duke of Ormonde, obtained from the pretender letters to nearly a hundred Jacobites in England and Scotland, engaging them to put out all their power and influence against Walpole.

Whilst these combined efforts were making to unseat him, Walpole saw his cabinet every day becoming more unreliable, more divided against him. The duke of Newcastle was eagerly pressing forward to supplant him. He had entered into secret engagements with the duke of Argyll, and lord chancellor Hardwicke threw himself into that clique. The earl of Harrington did not forget the severe observations of Walpole on his conduct when he was with king George at Hanover, and the king was compelled to undergo such humiliation on the approach of the French array under marshal de Maillebois. To these were added the earl of Wilmington, formerly Sir Spencer Compton, who, forgetting his alarm at the idea of succeeding Walpole as prime minister, now was anxious for that honour. To add to these depressing circumstances, the king arrived from Hanover in a humour ready to lay his disgrace and failure