Meanwhile the country was preparing to follow up the first success. After changes of plan, hesitations, and much administrative confusion, it was finally decided to make a double attack on Spanish America. A small squadron under Anson was to go round Cape Horn and range the west coast of South America as far north as Panama, while a great expedition carrying a body of troops under command of Lord Cathcart was to sail to the West Indies, join Vernon, and other troops drawn from the British possessions in America, and then the whole was to fall on the Spaniards. The actual point of attack was left to the discretion of the chiefs. Anson’s justly famous voyage may be left aside for the present with the observation that as part of a combined operation it was a failure through the delays shown in dispatching the expeditions. According to the original plan, Lord Cathcart was to have reached the West Indies at the end of October 1740 under protection of six warships. But the Government heard that the Spaniards were sending out a fleet. France was also beginning to move for the purpose of supporting Spain. The Government delayed the expedition till a more powerful fleet could be collected. It left England under the care of 25 warships commanded by Sir C. Ogle on 26th October, at which date it ought to have been on the field of operations. On the 19th December it reached Dominica, where Lord Cathcart died, and was succeeded by General Wentworth. It was not at Jamaica till the 7th January. Meanwhile the enemy had not been idle. The attention of France, still nominally at peace with us, was drawn off by the death of the emperor and the opening of the Austrian Succession. Spain was left to her own resources, which, however, proved greater and were better handled than we had expected. Don Rodrigo de Torres sailed on the 10th July, reached the West Indies unmolested by us, sent part of his ships to reinforce Carthagena under Don Blas de Leso, and then went on, still unmolested by us, to Havana. It may be added that he finally brought the Spanish trade home unseen, and even unsought by us.