OPERATIONS ON THE SPANISH MAIN, ETC. 



253 



and on the 1st of iVugust, arrived at a group of islands, at 59° 8' 

 upon one of which the explorers landed and named the spot, 

 "Nuestra Senora de Regla." 



The expected assaults of the English in the Atlantic were not 

 long withheld, for in this year, on the 20th of October, they seized 

 Omoa in Guatemala, for the recovery of which the president, Don 

 Matias Galvez, quitted the capital immediately and demanded 

 succor from Mexico. The Indians, it is related, aided the British 

 in this attack, but the assailants abandoned the captured port, after 

 stripping it of its cannon and munitions of war, in consequence of 

 the insalubrity of the climate. The British had established a post 

 at a place then called Wallis, the centre of a region rich in dye- 

 woods, and aptly situated so as to aid in the contraband trade 

 which they carried on with Yucatan, Guatemala and Chiapas ; and, 

 accordingly Don Roberto Rivas Vetancourt attacked the settle- 

 ment successfully, making prisoners of all the inhabitants, more 

 than three hundred slaves, and capturing a number of small vessels. 

 But just as hostilities ceased, two English frigates and another 

 armed vessel, arrived to succor the settlement, and forced the 

 Spanish governor to abandon his enterprise and depart with his 

 flotilla. Nevertheless Vetancourt, burned more than forty different 

 foreign establishments, and succeeded in capturing an English bri- 

 gantine of forty -four guns. The commander believed that this sig- 

 nal devastation of the enemy's settlement and property would result 

 in freeing the land from such dangerous neighbors. 



About this period the Spanish government detached General 

 Solano and a part of his squadron, with orders for America, to aid 

 in the military enterprises designed against Florida, in which 

 Mexico was to take a significant part. This commander was to co- 

 operate with Don Bernardo de Galvez, and both these personages, 

 in the years 1779, 1780 and 1781, making common cause with 

 the French against the English, carried the war actively up the 

 Mississippi and into various portions of Florida. The remaining 

 period of Mayorga's viceroyalty was chiefly occupied with prepara- 

 tions in the neighborhood of Vera Cruz against an assault from the 

 British, and in suppressing, by the aid of the alcalde Urizar, a 

 trifling revolt among the Indians of Izucar. An unfortunate disa- 

 agreement arose between Mayorga and the Spanish minister Gal- 

 vez, and he was finally, after many insults from the count, dis 

 placed, in order to make room for Don Matias Galvez. The un 

 fortunate viceroy departed for Spain but never reached his native 

 land. He died in sight of Cadiz, and his wife was indemnified for 



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