[1] This was part of Sir Francis Drake's Great Expedition and was his last engagement on the Spanish Main before he headed north for the Roanoke Colony.

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.

The fleet headed north, and in late April Drake put into the Spanish Cuban mainland where his men dug wells in search of fresh water and gathered supplies to help counter an outbreak of dysentery, then he moved on.

[2] Drake knew of the place and was also aware of the fact that the Spanish under Pedro Menéndez de Avilés had ordered all of the French Huguenot colonists that had tried to settle in the area executed.

Drake sent a landing party to investigate, while Christopher Carleill, captain of the Tiger, and a few volunteers rowed a ship's boat into the inlet and saw no sign of any Spaniards.

Drake and his men occupied the area of the small fort but during the night Indians, native allies of the Spanish garrison, attacked.

[2][5] The following day, Drake, Carleill, and around two hundred men advanced up the inlet in pinnaces and small boats, and they soon came upon the Spanish log stockade fort of San Juan.

They found it deserted, as the Spanish had fled, but discovered an intact gun platform with fourteen bronze artillery pieces.

Carleill's men then charged all the way to the outskirts of the town into the scrub, forcing the Spanish to retreat, and leaving Drake in control of the settlement.

[3] Drake was greeted as a national hero upon his arrival in England; by that time news of his daring raids on the Spanish Main had reached most of Europe.

His direct assault on the Spanish Empire was disastrous for the prestige of Spain and threatened the continued flow of New World riches, in the form of silver and gold, into its national treasury.