"As soon as all were landed," wrote the biographer who knew him best, "Putnam fortified his camp, that he might not be exposed to insult from inhabitants of the neighboring districts.... Here the party remained unmolested several days, until the storm had so much abated as to permit the convoy to take them off. They soon joined the troops before Havana, who, having been several weeks in that unhealthy climate, had already begun to grow extremely sickly. The opportune arrival of the Provincial reenforcement, in perfect health, contributed not a little to forward the works and hasten the reduction of that important place. But the Provincials suffered so miserably by sickness afterward, that very few ever returned to their native land again." This is all that Colonel Putnam's contemporary, Humphreys, has to say of the most eventful episode of his hero's career, but it seems to the present writer (who has personally investigated the British and Colonial invasion of Cuba "on the spot") that the subject is worthy of more extended notice. The English expedition against Havana was occasioned by the King of Spain, Charles III, having entered into what was known as the "family compact" with Louis XV of France, by which the Bourbons were to support each other against British rapacity and aggrandizement, as they styled it. England had long looked covetously upon Havana, which the Spaniards themselves called the "Key of the New World," situated at the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico and (in the hands of a strong power) then controlling the seaboard of territory at present comprised in the South Atlantic States of our Union. So she hastened to seize the capital of Cuba, the "Pearl of the Antilles," and early in June, 1762, the surprised and frightened inhabitants were informed that a fleet of sixty ships-of-war had landed more than 20,000 men at the little port of Cogimar, a few miles to the east of picturesque and formidable Morro Castle. Quickly, then, the Captain-General assembled the "Junta of Defense," composed of men most eminent in military affairs in Havana, and placed before them the situation.[1] They resolved upon a spirited defense, even though their soldiers were insufficiently armed and they had no defensive works save the Morro, then about a hundred years old, and its companion fortress called the Punta, between which two forts lay the deep and narrow entrance to the harbor. This harbor was blocked by some big war-ships, and a chain was stretched across the mouth, but the English did not even essay an entrance, having landed their troops to the east, and first marching upon the Morro from Cogimar and the town of Guanabacao, which they took quite easily, and then sweeping over the Cabanas hills, where the Spaniards later built the vast fortifications which they should have constructed sooner for the defense of their capital city. [Footnote 1: From _Nociones de Historia de Cuba_, by Dr. Vidal Morales; Havana, 1904.]