After a forty days' siege the Moro Castle was taken on the 30th of July, and the city surrendered on the 10th of August.

The Spaniards lost not only the city and port, but twelve ships-of-the-line, besides L3,000,000 in money and merchandise belonging to the Spanish king.

The importance of Havana was not to be measured only by its own size, or its position as centre of a large and richly cultivated district; it was also the port commanding the only passage by which the treasure and other ships could sail from the Gulf of Mexico to Europe in those days.

With Havana in an enemy's hands it would be necessary to assemble them at Cartagena and from there beat up against the trade-winds,--an operation always difficult, and which would keep ships long in waters where they were exposed to capture by English cruisers.

Not even an attack upon the isthmus would have been so serious a blow to Spain.