King Carlos III set the defence of the Captaincy General of Guatemala as one of his highest priorities in the Americas, after the conquest of British West Florida.

In September the capture of Cayo Cocina gave them possession of the British settlement at St. George's Caye (off the coast near present-day Belize City).

Then, anticipating a British attack against the nearby port of Santo Tomás de Castilla, Gálvez withdrew the garrison there to Omoa.

[10] The Spanish had started building San Fernando de Omoa, principally with African slave labour, in the 1740s during the War of Jenkins' Ear.

[12] The British continued to make attacks on the Central American coast but were never successful in their goal of dividing the Spanish colonies and gaining access to the Pacific Ocean.

Though a fairly small engagement and a short lived victory, the storming of the fortifications at Omoa was the scene of an event that would be repeatedly depicted by British engravers for years to come.

Captain William Dalrymple, in his letter to Lord George Germain dated the 21 October 1779, wrote:Your lordship will pardon my mentioning an instance of an elevated mind in a British tar, which amazed the Spaniards, and gave them a very high idea of English valour: not content with one cutlass, he scrambled up the walls with two; and meeting a Spanish officer without arms, who had been roused out of his sleep, had the generosity not to take any advantage; but presenting him with one of his cutlasses, told him, "You are now on a footing with me.