[3] A committee under Cromwell's brother-in-law John Desborough supervised logistics; with the end of the Dutch war, the New Model Army was being reduced and the expedition provided an opportunity to employ surplus troops.

They were led by Robert Venables, a veteran of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms recently returned from four years of often brutal campaigning in Ireland; although well regarded by Cromwell, his complaints about the poor condition of these troops were ignored.

Morale among the soldiers sank lower still when the civilian commissioners stipulated that they were not to plunder the Spanish colonies they were about to attack but rather to preserve them intact for subsequent English colonisation.

An attack on the main target of Hispaniola, the island which now holds Haiti and the Dominican Republic, was repulsed in April 1655, the English suffering heavy losses from disease.

Although the exiled Charles II had agreed in the 1656 Treaty of Brussels to return any territory captured from Spain, following the 1660 Restoration he did not fulfill this pledge and the island was retained as a possession of the crown.