Battle of Cartagena de Indias

13 March – 20 May 1741, Cartagena de Indias, New Granada

Spanish victory; the British withdrew

The biggest British amphibious expedition of the century, nearly 30 ships of the line and over 180 other ships carrying an army, was sent against Cartagena, the strongest Spanish port on the Main. Vernon forced the Boca Chica entrance to the great harbour, taking its forts, and the Spanish admiral Blas de Lezo, who had lost a leg, an arm and an eye in earlier wars, burned and sank his few ships of the line to block the inner channel. But the army's assault on the fortress of San Felipe de Barajas failed, Vernon and General Wentworth quarrelled, and yellow fever killed thousands of soldiers and sailors. In May the British gave up and sailed back to Jamaica, having lost far more men to disease than to the Spanish.