The event depicted here is the defense and recovery of Puerto Rico Bay in September 1625, after it was attacked by a Dutch squadron under the command of Admiral Boudewijn Hendrickszoon. The Dutch entered the bay on September 25 with seventeen ships and a sizeable landing force. Over the following two days, they occupied the space between the city and San Felipe Castle, which was defended by Governor Juan de Haro. The Dutch besieged the castle for 28 days, shelling it from artillery emplacements at El Cañuelo Tower and Calvary Heights. Haro twice refused to surrender, leading the Dutch to set fire to the village, but as Gonzalo de Céspedes y Meneses reported in his Primera parte de la historia de don Felipe III, rey de Españas (First Part of the Story of Philip III, King of Spain, published in 1631), on October 22, a group of soldiers led by Juan de Amézqueta emerged from the Spanish garrison and, at great risk, with water up to their waists, forced the Dutch to return to their ships. This led the Dutch to abandoned the harbor on November third, having lost 400 men and a 500-ton vessel that ran aground with 30 cannons aboard. Letters of payment and Cajés’s own testament indicate that he was commissioned at a cost of 700 Ducats to paint two battle scenes for the Hall of Realms: the present work, and The Expulsion of the Dutch from the Isle of San Martín by the Marquis of Caldereita (missing since the War of Independence, when it was almost certainly looted by Sebastiani or some other French general). According to Cruz y Bahamonde the missing work was signed and dated in 1634, but is seems certain that Cajés, who died that same year on December 15, was unable to complete either one alone, and left at least one unfinished at his death. On March 1, 1635, painter Antonio Puga declared in his testament that he had worked at Cajés’s house, and under his orders, on the paintings for the Hall of Realms. And on April 14 of that same year, Luis Fernández received 800 Reales for having completed the painting that Eugenio Caxés began. As Angulo and Pérez Sánchez have pointed out, it is very likely that Puga painted the landscapes on both canvases, while Fernández completed the foreground of one -possibly this one if, in fact, the other was signed in 1634. The same authors have observed that the present work is painted in a manner different than any other by Cajés’s hand, and they have further suggested that the composition may have been supplied by Carducho. The figures in the foreground are certainly Governor Juan de Haro, and probably Juan de Amézqueta, who commanded the force that emerged from the garrison. Behind them, Spanish troops are shown driving the Dutch back towards the ocean, where various enemy ships are berthed. One of these bears the three-colored flag of the Netherlands and must be the one that ran aground. The hamlet burned by the Dutch appears on land. It has been pointed out that the background bears a surprising resemblance to the actual landscape. This canvas is one of fifty chosen for the Napoleon Museum during the War of Independence. It returned from France on June 10, 1816 and entered the Museo del Prado in 1827.

Museo Nacional del Prado, El Palacio del Rey Planeta, Museo Nacional del Prado, 2005, p.144