he rest of the fleet followed a few days
later. The number of casualties on each side was surprisingly small. The
invaders lost only thirty men killed, and the Spaniards between fifty
and sixty, but among the latter were the two alcaldes and many other
officers and prominent citizens of the town.[176]

To satisfactorily explain at Madrid these two presumptuous assaults upon
Spanish territory in America was an embarrassing problem for the English
Government, especially as Myngs' men imprisoned at Seville and Cadiz
were said to have produced commissions to justify their actions.[177]
The Spanish king instructed his resident in London to demand whether
Charles accepted responsibility for the attack upon St. Jago, and the
proceedings of English cases in the Spanish courts arising from the
depredations of Galician corsairs were indefinitely suspended.[178]
When, however, there followed upon this, in May 1663, the news of the
sack and burning of Campeache, it stirred up the greatest excitement in
Madrid.[179] Orders and, what was rarer in Spain, money were immediately
sent to Cadiz to the Duke of Albuquerque to hasten the work on the royal
Armada for despatch to the Indies; and efforts were made to resuscitate
the defunct Armada de Barlovento, a small fleet which had formerly been
used to catch interlopers and protect the coasts of Terra-Firma. In one
way the capture of Campeache had touched Spain in her most vulnerable
spot. The Mexican Flota, which was scheduled to sail from Havana in June
1663, refused to stir from its retreat at Vera Cruz until the galleons
from Porto Bello came to convoy it. The arrival of the American treasure
in Spain was thus delayed for two months, and the bankrupt government
put to sore straits for money.

The activity of the Spaniards, however, was merely a blind to hide their
own impotence, and their clamours were eventually satisfied by the King
of England's writing to Deputy-Governor Lyttleton a letter forbidding
all such undertakings for the future. The text of the letter is as
follows: "Understanding with what jealousy and offence the Spaniards
look upon our island of Jamaica, and how disposed they are to make some
attempt upon it, and knowing how disabled it will remain in its own
defence if encouragement be given to such undertakings as have lately
been set on foot, and are yet pursued, and which divert the inhabitants
from that industry which alone can render the island considerable, the
k