CERVERA, PASCUAL CERVERA Y TOPETE (1839-1909), Spanish admiral, was born at Medina Sidonia on the 18th of February 1839. He showed an early inclination for the sea, and his family sent him to the naval cadet school at the age of twelve. As a sub-lieutenant he took part in the naval operations on the coast of Morocco during the campaign of 1859-60. Then he was for some time engaged in operations in the Sulu Islands and the Philippines. Afterwards he was on the West Indian station during the early part of the first Cuban War (1868-78), returning to Spain in 1873 to serve on the Basque coast against the Carlists. He distinguished himself in defending the Carraca arsenal near Cadiz against the Federals in 1873. He won each step in his promotion up to flag-rank through his steadiness and brilliant conduct in action, and was awarded the crosses of the Orders of Military and Naval Merit, Isabella the Catholic, and St Hermengilde, besides several medals. Cervera had a great reputation for decision, unbending temper and honesty, before he was placed at the head of the Bilbao building-yards. This post he resigned after a few months in order to become minister of marine in 1892, in a cabinet presided over by Sagasta. He withdrew from the cabinet when he found that his colleagues, from political motives, declined to support him in making reforms and, on the other hand, unwisely cut down the naval estimates. When in 1898 the Spanish-American War (q.v.) broke out, he was chosen to command a squadron composed of four first-class cruisers, the "Maria Theresa," his flagship, "Oquendo," "Vizcaya," and "Columbus," and several destroyers. This ill-fated squadron only started upon its reckless cruise across the ocean after its gallant commander had repeatedly warned both the minister of marine and the prime minister, Sagasta, in despatches from Cadiz and from the Canary and Cape Verde Islands, that the ships were insufficiently provided with coal and ammunition. Some of them, indeed, even lacked proper guns. In compliance with the instructions of the government, Admiral Cervera made for the landlocked harbour of Santiago de Cuba, where he co-operated in the defence, landing some guns and a naval brigade. In spite of his energetic representations, Cervera received an order from Madrid, dictated by political considerations, to sally forth. It meant certain destruction. The gallant squadron met forces trebly superior to it, and was totally destroyed. The admiral, three of his captains, and 1800 sailors and marines were taken by the victors to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, U.S.A. After the war, Cervera and his captains were tried before the supreme naval and military court of the realm, which honourably acquitted them all. In 1901 he became vice-admiral, in 1902 was appointed chief of staff of the Spanish navy, and in 1903 was made life senator. He died at Puerto Real on the 3rd of April 1909. Entry: CERVERA
At this juncture a strengthening of the French alliance seemed to the prince not merely expedient, but necessary. He had to contend against a strong peace party in Holland headed by the pensionary Pauw, but with the aid of the diplomatic skill of Aarssens all opposition was overcome. Pauw was replaced as pensionary by Jacob Cats, and the objections of Richelieu were met and satisfied. A defensive and offensive alliance with France was concluded early in 1635 against the king of Spain, and each party bound itself not to make a peace or truce without the assent of the other. A large French force was sent into the Netherlands and placed under the command of the prince of Orange. The military results of the alliance were during the first two campaigns inconsiderable. The Cardinal Infant Ferdinand had been appointed governor of the Netherlands, and he proved himself an excellent general, and there were dissensions in the councils of the allies. In 1637 the stadholder was able to add to his fame as an invincible besieger of cities. His failure to relieve Breda had hastened the death of Maurice. It fell in 1625 into the hands of Spinola after a blockade of eleven months; it was now retaken by Frederick Henry after a siege of eleven weeks, in the face of immense difficulties. The reluctance of the States of Holland, and of Amsterdam in particular, to grant adequate supplies caused the campaigns of 1638 and 1639 to be in the main defensive and dilatory. An attempted attack on Antwerp was foiled by the vigilance of the Cardinal Infant. A body of 6000 men under Count William of Nassau were surprised and utterly cut to pieces. The year 1639, which had begun with abortive negotiations, and in which the activity of the stadholder had been much hampered by ill-health, was not to end, however, without a signal triumph of the Dutch arms, but it was to be on sea and not on land. A magnificent Spanish armada consisting of 77 vessels, manned by 24,000 soldiers and sailors under the command of Admiral Oquendo, were sent to the Channel in September with orders to drive the Dutch from the narrow seas and land a large body of troops at Dunkirk. Attacked by a small Dutch fleet under Admiral Marten Tromp, the Spaniards sheltered themselves under the English Downs by the side of an English squadron. Tromp kept watch over them until he had received large reinforcements, and then (21st of October) boldly attacked them as they lay in English waters. Oquendo himself with seven vessels escaped under cover of a fog; all the rest of the fleet was destroyed. This crushing victory assured to the Dutch the command of the sea during the rest of the war. The naval power of Spain never in fact recovered from the blow. Entry: HISTORY
MANUEL DE MELLO, DOM FRANCISCO (? 1611-1666), Portuguese writer, a connexion on his father's side of the royal house of Braganza, was a native of Lisbon. He studied the Humanities at the Jesuit College of S. Antão, where he showed a precocious talent, and tradition says that at the age of fourteen he composed a poem in _ottava rima_ to celebrate the recovery of Bahia from the Dutch, while at seventeen he wrote a scientific work, _Concordancias mathematicas_. The death of his father, Dom Luiz de Mello, drove him early to soldiering, and having joined a contingent for the Flanders war, he found himself in the historic storm of January 1627, when the pick of the Portuguese fleet suffered shipwreck in the Bay of Biscay. He spent much of the next ten years of his life in military routine work in the Peninsula, varied by visits to the court of Madrid, where he contracted a friendship with the Spanish poet Quevedo and earned the favour of the powerful minister Olivares. In 1637 the latter despatched him in company with the conde de Linhares on a mission to pacify the revolted city of Evora, and on the same occasion the duke of Braganza, afterwards King John IV. (for whom he acted as confidential agent at Madrid), employed him to satisfy King Philip of his loyalty to the Spanish crown. In the following year he suffered a short imprisonment in Lisbon. In 1639 he was appointed colonel of one of the regiments raised for service in Flanders, and in June that year he took a leading part in defending Corunna against a French fleet commanded by the archbishop of Bordeaux, while in the following August he directed the embarcation of an expeditionary force of 10,000 men when Admiral Oquendo sailed with seventy ships to meet the French and Dutch. He came safely through the naval defeat in the channel suffered by the Spaniards at the hands of Van Tromp, and on the outbreak of the Catalonian rebellion became chief of the staff to the commander-in-chief of the royal forces, and was selected to write an account of the campaign, the _Historia de la guerra de Cataluña,_ which became a Spanish classic. On the proclamation of Portuguese independence in 1640 he was imprisoned by order of Olivares, and when released hastened to offer his sword to John IV. He travelled to England, where he spent some time at the court of Charles I., and thence passing over to Holland assisted the Portuguese ambassador to equip a fleet in aid of Portugal, and himself brought it safely to Lisbon in October 1641. For the next three years he was employed in various important military commissions and further busied himself in defending by his pen the king's title to his newly acquired throne. An intrigue with the beautiful countess of Villa Nova, and her husband's jealousy, led to his arrest on the 19th of November 1644 on a false charge of assassination, and he lay in prison about nine years. Though his innocence was clear, the court of his Order, that of Christ, influenced by his enemies, deprived him of his _commenda_ and sentenced him to perpetual banishment in India with a heavy money fine, and the king would not intervene to save him. Owing perhaps to the intercession of the queen regent of France and other powerful friends, his sentence was finally commuted into one of exile to Brazil. During his long imprisonment he finished and printed his history of the Catalonian War, and also wrote and published a volume of Spanish verses and some religious treatises, and composed in Portuguese a volume of homely philosophy, the _Carta de Guia de Casados_ and a _Memorial_ in his own defence to the king, which Herculano considered "perhaps the most eloquent piece of reasoning in the language." During his exile in Brazil, whither he sailed on the 17th of April 1655, he lived at Bahia, where he wrote one of his _Epanaphoras de varia historia_ and two parts of his masterpiece, the _Apologos dialogaes_. He returned home in 1659, and from then until 1663 we find him on and off in Lisbon, frequenting the celebrated _Academia dos Generosos_, of which he was five times elected president. In the last year he proceeded to Parma and Rome, by way of England, and France, and Alphonso VI. charged him to negotiate with the Curia about the provision of bishops for Portuguese sees and to report on suitable marriages for the king and his brother. During his stay in Rome he published his _Obras morales_, dedicated to Queen Catherine, wife of Charles II. of England, and his _Cartas familiares_. On his way back to Portugal he printed his _Obras metricas_ at Lyons in May 1665, and he died in Lisbon the following year. Entry: MANUEL