66 
THE STANDARD GUIDE. 
.on the Island. They command the mouth of the harbor. Five hundred 
yards beyond is the battery called La Pastora—The Pastor. East of 
the castle, commanding the sea, is the Velasco Battery, named in honor 
of that Captain Velasco whose fame is indelibly associated with the 
history of Morro. A tablet set in the wall of the northeast bastion 
proclaims that it was placed here in honor of Captain Luis de Velasco 
and Marques de Gonzalez, who fell in defense of the works. The con¬ 
flict in which they had part is the only momentous chapter in the history 
of Morro Castle, and may be told in brief here. 
The Siege of Havana. 
On the afternoon of June 6, 1762, the Captain-General Don Juan de 
Prado Porto Carrero received in Havana notice from the Morro that a 
fleet of 200 sail had been sighted off the coast. It was the British fleet, 
of whose rumored coming he had been incredulous and for which he 
was unprepared. Consternation prevailed, alarm bells were rung, there 
was hasty assembling of troops, the inhabitants were enrolled and 
armed with muskets, a council of war was convened, and Colonel Don 
Carlos Caro was dispatched with infantry and cavalry to meet the enemy 
at Cojimar. A Spanish squadron of twelve ships was in the harbor, and 
to the naval officers w r as entrusted the defense of the city. Command 
of Morro was given to Don Luis de Puente Velasco, captain of the Reyna 
ship of the line, with Marques de Gonzalez second in command; to 
Don Manuel Briseno, captain of one of the other ships, was given 
Castillo de la-Punta, and 9,000 of the men of the squadron were detailed 
for shore duty. Then the Captain-General issued a formal proclamation of 
war against Great Britain, and assembled his forces. Cavalry, infantry, 
artillery, seamen, militia and citizens, white and black, all told there were 
27,610. The greater part of the force was stationed at Guanabacoa, on 
the side of the bay opposite Havana, for the enemy was off Cojimar. 
The British fleet was under command of Admiral Sir George Pocock, 
with Lord Albemarle in command of the land troops. Great Britain, 
France and Spain being at war, the expedition had come to capture and 
plunder Havana, the key of Spain’s vast dominion in America. There 
were 200 ships of the line, brigs, sloops and transports, with 14,041 
troops mustered from England, Jamaica and North America. The fleet 
lay to off Cojimar, six miles east of the Morro, took the Cojimar fort 
and disembarked the troops. The next day, the 8th of June, Colonel 
Carleton repulsed the Spanish cavalry at Guanabacoa, and the entire 
Spanish force retired toward Havana. The panic in the city was re¬ 
doubled. The monks from the monasteries and the nuns from the con¬ 
vents and the women and children were sent out of the town under 
escort; but no man able to bear arms was permitted to pass the gates. 
All those portions of the town which lay outside the walls were re- 
