To Order or Inquire:
Telephone:
(800) 423-3741
or (212) 308-0018
Fax: (212) 308-0074
E-mail: info@martayanlan.com
70 East 55th Street, (Heron Tower)
New York, New York 10022
|
|
|
EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF THE SIEGE OF HAVANA
[CUBA / SIEGE OF HAVANA] HEVIA Y BUSTAMANTE, Gutierre Guido, Marqués del Real Transporte. Excmo. Señor mio. Madrid , 1762?.
Fol. [28 x 17.5 cm], (8) ff. Disbound with wrappers. Publication and library information (JCB) penciled on front wrappers. A few tears to edges of wrappers; leaves lightly creased, with light toning to upper margins; very faint waterstain to lower corner of first page. Generally good.
$3,350 Extremely rare first edition—only one other copy located—of a printed eyewitness account of the Battle of Havana by the Spanish naval commander, Gutierre Guido Hevia y Bustamante, who was subsequently court-martialed for losing the city to Britain. While the work lacks a date of publication, the document, signed October 1762, was very likely drawn up with an eye to such proceedings.
Hevia’s account begins with the hasty war council held in Havana on June 6 1762, during which Hevia and Juan de Prado, the colonial governor, decided to block the entrance to the harbor by sinking two of their own ships and utilize the crews of the remaining vessels to bolster the defense of Havana’s El Morro fortress. He goes on to enumerate the Spanish forces, including 1500 to 2000 “Negros trabajadores,” Cuban slaves who were promised (and given) their freedom in exchange for fighting the English invaders.
Hevia then recounts the events of the next 60 days: as the Spanish garrisoned and battened down the fort, transferring most of their ships’ artillery, ammunition and manpower to its defense, the English began constructing siege works in hopes of planting a mine and breaching the Morro’s outermost walls. On July 30 the mine was detonated and the fortress was overtaken, an event that the author narrates with great emotion: “The terrible incident of the Morro filled my heart with bitterness, and my spirit was plunged in a chaos of mournful reflection…” Hevia concludes with a summary of Spain’s losses, including the names of the 10 ‘ships of the line’ of the Spanish navy, which he had been unable to burn before the English capture.
In 1764 both Hevia and Prado were court-martialed for incompetence in the defense of Havana, Prado receiving a death sentence (later commuted to imprisonment) and Hevia sentenced to 10 years’ house arrest. Though there are a number of later pamphlets relating to the author’s court-martial and conviction (e.g. Palau 69,691), the present document is evidently the earliest record of Hevia’s testimony, as its date and place—Cadiz, October 30 1762—suggest that it was recorded almost immediately after he returned to Spain from his catastrophic defeat.
Not in Palau. Not in KVK.
OCLC: JCB, whose copy, in the absence of any published collation, we have checked against the present one.
* With thanks to Dennis Landis at JCB for checking their copy. The JCB copy is bound behind the following work: Defensa, y satisfaccion, que por la de su obligacion, y honor propio expone el marques del R.1 Transporte (Madrid 1764). This latter work is also owned by NYPL, Miami, UT Austin, and Michigan. Palau 69691 (1763) & 152628 (April 1764).
|
Back to All Categories
| Table of Contents
|
Back to the Top
|