[2] War had already been unofficially declared by Philip II of Spain after the Treaty of Nonsuch in which Elizabeth I had offered her support to the rebellious Protestant Dutch rebels.

[7] The city itself lay on the base of a narrow S-shaped spit of sand called La Caleta, which divided the Outer Harbour from the Caribbean, and which ended at the Boca Grande Channel.

[1]: 54  De Busto decided to concentrate the bulk of his forces on La Caleta and ordered a line of entrenchments laced with sand-filled wine barrels to be built, to protect the city behind him which was virtually defenceless.

[3]: 192 [4]: 264 The naval defenses of Cartagena included two well-armed galleys crewed by a total of 300 men under the direct command of Don Pedro Vique y Manrique who also doubled as the governor's military advisor.

[4]: 264  On land a stone-built fort, El Boqueron with eight guns, was garrisoned by about 200 men under Captain Pedro Mexia Mirabel and guarded the passage to the Inner Harbour.

[3]: 192  The main defence consisted of a force of up to 570 regulars and militia which protected the city itself (100 of them being pikemen), supported by a troop of 54 mounted lancers under the command of Captain Francisco de Carvajal, and a unit of as many as 300 Indian allies, equipped with bows and poisoned arrows.

[5] Drake appeared off Cartagena during the afternoon of 9 February 1586 and as the Boca Grande passage was unfortified, his ships passed through it in a long column, with the Elizabeth Bonaventure in the lead.

The English ships dropped anchor at the northern end of the Outer Harbour after sailing past the entrance, just beyond the range of the Spanish guns guarding the Boqueron Channel.

Coming in by way of Bahía de las Animas they moved forward but they soon ran into a chain of floating barrels which closed their way and in addition intense fire from El Boqueron forced their eventual withdrawal.

[1]: 56 [4]: 265 Just before midnight on 9 February, the troops clambered into boats, and they were rowed across the Boca Grande Channel to a beach on the southern end of La Caleta.

[7] The English troops formed themselves up into attack columns and by wading through the surf as the tide was out they were able to bypass the outer defences; Drake meanwhile organized a naval diversion.

Most of his men simply joined the rout after the English threatened to cut them off, and he was then forced to beach his galley under the guns of El Boqueron, and was set alight.

[4]: 268  Captain Pedro Mexia Mirabel and his defenders however slipped away the following night, which meant that by dawn on 11 February the city and some of its surroundings were in English hands.

[1]: 58 [3]: 193  Drake had captured more than sixty guns, and he immediately ordered his carpenters and gunners to repair their carriages, and to emplace them where they could to cover the landward approaches to the city.

[4]: 269  Drake and his men also managed to extort all the smaller individual payments from the rest of the Spanish prisoners, of the kind he had demanded of Alonso Bravo.

Drake accepted the governor's offer, and so for several days mule trains carrying silver and gold guarded by the English soldiers arrived in the town plaza.

The New Year Gift, a Spanish ship captured by Drake at Santo Domingo was abandoned, the vessel being sunk in the Boca Grande anchorage.

After leaving Cartagena and sailing northwards a small boarding party went ashore on Cuba and came back with ingredients for a medicine which was effective, and so became known as El Draque.