British Siege and Capture of Manila
A British expedition took Manila in October 1762 and handed it back nineteen months later. Spain had entered the Seven Years' War in January 1762 under the family compact with France, and the East India Company's establishment at Madras assembled a force of some 6,800 men — regulars, company troops and sepoys — and sailed for the Philippines. Nobody in Manila knew there was a war. The archbishop was acting governor, the garrison was small and the walls were in poor repair, and the city was stormed on 6 October after a bombardment of ten days. It was sacked for some forty hours, and a ransom of four million dollars was agreed to stop it, half payable at once and the rest in bills drawn on Madrid that were never honoured. The British then found that they controlled the walled city and nothing else. Simón de Anda, a member of the audiencia, had left with the treasury and the seal before the assault, declared himself governor, and organised a resistance in the provinces with Filipino troops that confined the occupiers to Manila and Cavite for the whole occupation. The city was returned under the peace of Paris in 1763 and evacuated in 1764. The occupation's most durable effect was in the Philippines rather than in Europe. It demonstrated that Spain could be beaten locally, and the risings that followed in Ilocos and Pangasinan were suppressed with difficulty. The expedition also captured the Manila galleon Santísima Trinidad on its way in, with a cargo valued at several million dollars, which is where most of the profit actually came from. The ransom bills were still being litigated in London decades later.
- Year: 1762 CE
- Category: Military
