dominion of Spain in the New
World which was at once her pride and the source of her wealth. It
might be in one of her great West-India Islands, St. Domingo, Cuba,
or Porto Rico, or it might be at Cartagena on the South-American
mainland, where the treasures of Peru were amassed, for annual
conveyance across the Atlantic. Much discretion was left to Penn and
Venables, but on the whole St. Domingo, then called Hispaniola, was
indicated for a beginning. Blake's presence in the Mediterranean with
the other fleet had been timed for an assault on Spain at home when
the news should arrive of the disaster to her colonies.[1]

[Footnote 1: Guizot, II. 184-186; Godwin, IV. 180-194.]

Penn and Venables together were not equal to one Blake. They opened
their sealed instructions at Barbadoes, one of the two or three small
Islands of the West-Indies then possessed by the English, and, after
counsel and preparation, proceeded to Hispaniola. The fleet now
consisted of about sixty vessels, and there were about 9000 soldiers
on board, some of them veterans, but most of them recruits of bad
quality. They were off St. Domingo, the capital of the Island, on the
14th of April, 1655, and from that moment there was misunderstanding
and blundering. Penn, Venables, and the Chief Commissioner who had
been sent out with them, differed as to the proper landing point; the
wrong landing point was chosen for the main body; the men fell ill
and mutinied; the Spaniards, who might have been surprised at first
by a direct assault on St. Domingo, resisted bravely, and poured shot
among the troops from ambuscade. Two attempts to get into St. Domingo
were both foiled with heavy loss, including the death of
Major-General Heane and others of the best officers. The mortality
from climate and bad food being also great, the enterprise on
Hispaniola was then abandoned; but, dreading a return to England with
nothing accomplished, Penn and Venables bethought themselves of
Jamaica. Here, where they arrived May 10, they were rather more
fortunate. The Spaniards, utterly unforewarned, deserted the coast,
and fled inland. There was no difficulty, therefore, in taking
nominal possession of the chief town, though even that was done in a
bungling manner. Then, leaving the Island in charge of a portion of
the troops, under Major-General Fortescue, with Vice-Admiral Goodson
to sail about it with a protecting squadron, Penn hastened back to
England, Venables quickly follo