Morro castle taken.

Five days after the arrival of the reinforcements, Lord Albemarle judged himself sufficiently strong to assault Morro Castle, and the word was accordingly given.  The sunken ships were blown up early on the morning of July 25, and the British ships sailed into the fury of the Spanish cannon, belching shot from all along the shore.  The big guns of the ships could not be elevated sufficiently to silence the fire from Morro Castle, and this was accordingly left to be carried by assault.  The Puntal was silenced, troops landed, and after five days of ferocious fighting, in which the British and American losses were enormous by reason of their exposed position, and where every one concerned exhibited the utmost valor, Morro Castle was carried by the bayonet.  The fighting within its walls after an entry had been made was exceedingly fierce.  The Marquis of Gonzalez was killed by his own cowardly men for refusing to surrender.  The cannon from the other Spanish batteries were turned upon the Morro as soon as the Spanish flag had been lowered, and the British ensign run up in its place; and then the slow and disastrous work of the siege was taken up again.

As the lines grew nearer and nearer, and the last hope of the Spaniard for relief was given up, there was the usual attempt made to buy the attacking party off.  Though it would have been a hopeless undertaking at any time, the amount offered for the ransom of the city was so far below the treasure which was known to be in the town that the offer was made a subject for derisive laughter.  Fifteen days after Morro Castle had fallen, though the mortality in the trenches was so great that a few weeks more must have seen the abandonment of the enterprise, the city fell, the garrison stipulating for a passage out with all the honors of war, which was freely accorded them, owing to the climatic predicament in which Lord Albemarle found himself.  It was also stipulated that private property should be respected.  This was strictly observed, though Spain had set repeated examples of giving a captured city over to plunder in the face of a stipulation to the contrary.

August 14, 1762, the British entered, the glory of their victory over such heavy odds even then dimmed by the enormous mortality.  It was reckoned that the few days of August had wrought more damage to the invading forces than all the weeks of hard labor and open assault which had gone before.  In the city—­the Havannah, as it was then called—­treasure was found to the amount of $7,000,000, much of it in such shape that there had been abundant time to withdraw it either to Spain or into the interior of the island, had there been any other than Spaniards at the head of affairs.