From that time to the end of the eighteenth century England's attempts
to secure the two most-coveted Antilles (Cuba and Puerto Rico)
continued with short intervals of peace.

In 1768 an English fleet of 22 ships, with a landing force under the
command of the Earl of Estren, appeared before San Juan and demanded
its surrender. Before a formal attack could be made a furious
hurricane wrecked the fleet on Bird Island, and everybody on board
perished excepting a few soldiers and marines, who escaped a watery
grave only to be made prisoners.[42]

It is certain, however, that on August 5, 1702, an English brigantine
and a sloop came to Arecibo and landed 30 men, who were forced to
reembark with considerable loss, though the details of this affair, as
given by Friar Abbad, and repeated by Mr. Neuman, are evidently
largely drawn from imagination.

In September of the following year (1703) there were landings of
Englishmen near Loiza and in the neighborhood of San German, of which
we know only that they were stoutly opposed; and we learn from an
official document that there was another landing at Boca Chica on the
south coast in 1743, when the English were once more obliged to
reembark with the loss of a pilot-boat.

These incessant attacks, not on Puerto Rico only, but on all the other
Spanish possessions, and the reprisals they provoked, created such
animosity between the people of both countries that hostilities had
practically commenced before the declaration of war (October 23,
1739). In November Admiral Vernon was already in the Antilles with a