Capture of Portobello (1601)

Military event For other battles in the same place, see Battle of Porto Bello.

Part of the Anglo–Spanish War
(1585-1604)

Present-day ruins of 16th and 17 centuries Santiago de la Gloria fort at seaport town of Portobelo, Colon, Isthmus of Panama on the Spanish Main of the then world-wide Spanish Empire

Date	17 January 1601
Location	Portobelo, Colón, Spanish Main Spanish Empire (present-day Republic of Panama)
Result	English victory

Belligerents

Spain

England

Commanders and leaders

Gov Pedro Meléndez

Sir William Parker
of Plymouth, England
(died 1618)

Strength

100 soldiers
3 ships

5 ships
200 soldiers & sailors

Casualties and losses

50 casualties
3 ships captured

Light

v t e Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604)
Caribbean and South America San Juan de Ulúa Drake's 1572-73 expedition Drake's circumnavigation São Vicente Santo Domingo Cartagena St. Augustine Cavendish's circumnavigation Spanish West Indies Havana Hispaniola · Bay of Honduras 1st Puerto Caballos San Mateo Recife Trinidad · Orinoco La Guaira · Caracas · Coro Guadalupe 1st San Juan Panama Pinos 2nd San Juan Tabasco Portobello 2nd Puerto Caballos Santiago de Cuba Atlantic Vila Franca do Campo Terceira Newfoundland Bermuda Santiago Senegal 1st Azores 1st Flores 2nd Flores Faial Las Palmas 2nd Azores European waters Scheldt Pantelleria 1st Cádiz ·Algarve Spanish Armada (1st Calais · Gravelines) English Armada (Corunna · Lisbon) Bayona 1st Gibraltar Strait 2nd Gibraltar Strait Berlengas Gulf of Almería Barbary Coast Bay of Biscay Mount's Bay Cawsand 2nd Cádiz Cape Finisterre Cornwall · West Wales Sesimbra Dover Strait Gulf of Cádiz Low Countries and Germany Mons Goes Middelburg Haarlem 1st Geertruidenberg Leiden Delft Valkenburg Schoonhoven Gembloux Rijmenam Borgerhout Mechelen 1st Steenwijk Kollum Noordhorn Niezijl Lochem Lier Eindhoven Steenbergen Aalst Antwerp Arnhem 1st Grave Venlo Axel 1st Rheinberg 1st Zutphen 1st Sluis Bergen op Zoom 2nd Geertruidenberg Breda 2nd Zutphen Deventer Delfzijl Knodsenburg 1st Hulst Nijmegen 2nd Steenwijk 1st Coevorden 3rd Geertruidenberg 2nd Coevorden Groningen Huy 1st Groenlo Lippe 2nd Hulst Turnhout 2nd Rheinberg Meurs 2nd Groenlo Bredevoort Enschede Ootmarsum Oldenzaal Lingen Schenckenschans Zaltbommel Rees San Andreas Nieuwpoort 3rd Rheinberg · 2nd Meurs Ostend 's-Hertogenbosch 2nd Grave Hoogstraten Ardenburg · Oostberg · 2nd Sluis France Arques Ivry Paris Château-Laudran Rouen Caudebec Craon Blaye Morlaix Crozon 2nd Calais Amiens Ireland Carrigafoyle Smerwick Irish West Coast Kinsale Castlehaven

Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604)

Caribbean and South America

Atlantic

European waters

Low Countries and Germany

France

Ireland

The Capture of Portobello was a military event during the long ongoing Anglo–Spanish War of 1585-1604, in which an English naval expedition under the command of privateer William Parker (died 1618), of Plymouth, assaulted and took the seaport town of Portobelo at Colon on the eastern / northern coast of Panama / Isthmus of Panama in Central America, from the Spanish, captured some looted booty, and then sacked the place, an important site on the Spanish Main in the then world-wide Spanish Empire.

Capture

Background

The war with the Kingdom of Spain and its then world-wide Spanish Empire, was continuing and English privateers were still roaming the Empire's Spanish Main in the Americas for prizes and attacking ports. In November 1600, English privateer Captain William Parker, sailed from the seaport of Plymouth on the southwest coast of England, facing the English Channel.

He was in command of a modest venture consisting of a small fleet of the 100-ton Prudence, the 60-ton Pearl (commanded by Robert Rawlins), a pinnace, and two small shallops with the flotilla crew in all numbering 200 seamen. At Cubagua they were offered a ransom in exchange for a number of pearl boats they had seized. Near Cabo de le Veda they captured a Portuguese slaving ship. Captain Parker next guided what was now grown to a flotilla of six ships to the east of a recently abandoned Nombre de Dios and approached Portobello in pinnaces and shallops with the help of the black guides.

Assault

Under cover of darkness early in the morning of 6 February they employed a captured Portuguese to respond to a challenge from the newly completed fort of San Felipe on the North shore and after succeeding in this ruse were able to bypass the place without hindrance.

They then disembarked a vanguard of some forty men from the shallops. Parker and his men were then able to enter the city on the south shore unopposed since the castle of Santiago de la Gloria was positioned too far away to offer any protection. Whilst some of their party created as much noise and panic as possible in their attack on the barracks and crown buildings the remainder of the English took control of the harbour.

The 100 Spanish defenders which the Spanish Governor Pedro Meléndez had sent were too little too late. There was a bitter battle fought to seize the treasure house but it was captured after some forty Spaniards were surrounded, all being either killed or captured. The English were able to push the rest of the Spanish troops with ease inland and with only a few casualties. By the end of the day however Parker had secured the town and set about garrisoning the place. About 30 Spanish prisoners were taken among whom was the governor and several persons of importance. The English prepared for a Spanish counterattack but it never came.

Aftermath

Parker could only hold the town for 24 hours and the next day found no large bullion shipments of precious metals of gold or silver. He did however acquire a large haul of booty and he had taken a further three prizes of ships when the harbor was secured. Parker then went about sacking the town and he burnt the outlying town of Triana to the ground. After this and with all the booty that could be collected along with captured cannons, Parker then withdrew releasing the prisoners.

The English fleet then stood out to sea with a total 10,000 ducats of booty. Parker set sail for England, returning to Plymouth in May 1601 where he distributed his prize money and in September of that year became Lord Mayor of Plymouth.

A few years later, he would then become a founding member of the new Virginia Company organized in London in 1606, which soon sent expeditions across the Atlantic in the next year of 1607, and succeeding years to establish and settle the Colony of Virginia (modern U.S. state / Commonwealth of Virginia) and first town of Jamestown on the North bank of the James River, upstream in the interior from the Chesapeake Bay, on the East Coast of the North America continent, the beginnings of English America / British America and the Thirteen Colonies of the soon world-wide British Empire over the next four hundred years.

References

^ Bradley p.128-129
^ Marley p.93
^ Bicheno pg.302
^ Chartrand p.30
^ "Parker, William (d.1618)" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.

Sources

Bicheno, Hugh. (2012). Elizabeth's Sea Dogs: How England's Mariners Became the Scourge of the Seas. Conway. ISBN 978-1844861743.
Bradley, Peter T. (2010). British Maritime Enterprise in the New World: From the Late Fifteenth to the Mid-eighteenth Century. Edwin Mellen Press. ISBN 978-0773478664.
Konstam, Angus (2000). Elizabethan Sea Dogs 1560-1605 (Elite). Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1841760155.
Marley, David (2008). Wars of the Americas: A Chronology of Armed Conflict in the Western Hemisphere. ISBN 978-1598841008.
Chartrand, Rene (2006). The Spanish Main 1493-1800 (Fortress). Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1846030055.

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