This dockyard for the construction of ships primarily intended for revenue service, was at first erected between the fort of la Fuerza and la Contaduria (office of the accountant or auditor of the exchequer), because that location offered great facilities to lower the vessels directly from the rocks to the sea. But as soon as the superiority of the ships built in Havana over those produced in Spain became manifest, owing to the excellent quality of the timber used, it was at once decided to extend the dockyard and it was moved to the extreme southern part of the city where it occupied a space of one-fourth of a league, near the walls with the batements and buttresses, which added much to its solidity and beauty. There within a few years were built all kinds of ships, from revenue cutters to warships intended to strengthen the Armada. In time the plant turned out large numbers of vessels. According to Valdes there were built between the years 1724 and 1796 forty-nine ships, twenty-two frigates, seven paquebots, nine brigantines, fourteen schooners, four ganguiles (barges used in the coasting-trade, lighters) and four pontones (pontoons or mud-scows, flat bottomed boats, furnished with pulleys and implements to clean harbors); in all one hundred and nine vessels. This shipyard and the fortifications which were being steadily improved were found of invaluable service in the year 1726, when a break between Spain and England occurred and a British fleet appeared in the Antilles. So alarmed was King Philip V. by the news of the danger of British invasion which threatened Cuba, that he immediately ordered D. Gregorio Guazo, who had in the meantime been entrusted with the superior military government of the Antilles and Central America, to adopt measures of safety. Guazo accordingly sent the squadron of D. Antonio Gastaneta with a force of one thousand men to assist in the defense of Cuba. The historians Alcazar and Blanchet report that D. Guazo himself accompanied the squadron, fell sick upon his arrival in Havana and died the same month. But Valdes records that he died on the thirteenth of August of that year in his native town of Ossuna. However, D. Juan de Andrea Marshall of Villahemosa seems to have been appointed his successor. The precautions taken were to be well rewarded. On the twenty-seventh of April, 1727, the English squadron under the command of Admiral Hossier came in sight and approached the entrance to the harbor of Havana. But the population had so effectively prepared the defense of the city, that the attack of the British failed. Besides seeing himself defeated by the enemy, the Admiral saw with dismay that his crews were decimated by fever. Gastaneta was at that time in Vera Cruz and Martinez alone carried off the victory over the British forces which after a blockade of a month had to retire. Admiral Hossier was so overcome with his failure and the loss of his men that he himself died of grief shortly after.