Battle of Pinos
Battle of Pinos | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Part of the Anglo-Spanish War (1585) | |||||||
Location of Isla de Pinos (called Isla de la Juventud since 1978) in Cuba. | |||||||
| |||||||
Belligerents | |||||||
England | Spain | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Thomas Baskerville | Bernardino de Avellaneda | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
14 warships[1] | 13 galleons[1] | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
1 galleon captured 1 patache captured 325 killed or captured[2] |
1 ship sunk 80 killed or wounded[2] |
The Battle of Pinos was a naval engagement between a Spanish fleet under Admiral Bernardino Delgadillo y Avellaneda and the surviving ships of
Background
After failed attacks against
The English fleet departed Portobello on February 8.
Battle
On March 7, part of Avellaneda's fleet surprised two English ships south of Cienfuegos.[5] They were the Pegasine and were commanded by Thomas Maynarde.[5] Engaged by the Spaniards, they received extensive damage, but finally managed to escape avoiding the dangerous shoals of Pinar del Río, and reached England on May 3,[5] just a week before Avellaneda encountered the bulk of the English fleet supplying of wood and water at Guaniguanicos Cove, in the Island of Pinos, south of Cuba.[2] Avellaneda immediately ordered his ships hoist their flags and attack.[2] Baskerville, whose flagship was John Hawkin's La Garlande, however, tried to avoid combat scattering his ships towards Cape San Antonio.[2] Most of the English ships escaped because they abandoned their boats and threw their baggage into the water. Vice Admiral Juan Gutiérrez de Garibay's three-ship vanguard managed to intercept and capture two ships:[1] a 300-man galleon and a 25-man patache whose prisoners were put to work on Havana's fortifications.[1] The loss on the Spanish side amounted to 80 men killed or wounded and a warship, sunk during the clash.[6]
Aftermath
Avellaneda's fleet pursued the English as far as the Old Bahama Channel.[6] On 22 May, returning to Havana, they captured John Crosse’s pinnace Little Exchange off the town.[1] This was not the last loss suffered by the English, as only eight of the 28 warships which had departed England on 1595 returned to their country.[6] The survivors reached Plymouth at the same time the Spanish treasure fleet disembarked at Sanlúcar de Barrameda with 20 million silver dollars, one of the largest shipments ever to arrive from the Americas.[6]
Notes
References
- Corbett, Julian S. (2010). Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816. READ BOOKS. ISBN 978-1-4455-8368-6.
- Fernández Duro, Cesáreo (1898). Armada Española desde la unión de los reinos de Castilla y Aragón. Vol. III. Madrid, Spain: Est. tipográfico "Sucesores de Rivadeneyra".
- Marley, David (1998). Wars of the Americas: a chronology of armed conflict in the New World, 1492 to the present. Santa Barbara, USA: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-0-87436-837-6.
- Ullivarri, Saturnino (2004). Piratas y corsarios en Cuba. Spain: Editorial Renacimiento. ISBN 978-84-8472-127-7.