Spanish School, circa 1780

This is a rare view of Havana dating from the late eighteenth century when the city was one of the great commercial centres of the world. It shows a view of the city from the sea looking down the natural harbour which afforded protection and an easy landing place for merchant ships and men-of-war. To the left of the entrance to the harbour stands the Castillo de los Tres Reyes del Morro. El Morro as it is known was constructed between 1590 and 1640 and was subsequently rebuilt after the departure of the English in 1763. To the right is the Castillo de San Salvador de la Punta, a smaller fort, which dates from the same period. The tower in the centre of the fort was part of the reconstruction of the late 1760s - in an oil of the Siege of Havana, 1762 by Dominic Serres which has a similar viewpoint, this tower is not there. The main city is surrounded by walls which were begun in 1671 and completed about 1740. They were almost entirely demolished between 1862 and 1880.

Havana was founded by the Spaniard Velasquez in 1514 and soon became one of the main important places in the New World. By the eighteenth century it became the centre of Spanish trade in the area and was coveted by the English who succeeded in capturing the city after a long siege in 1762. However a treaty at the end of the Seven Years War in February 1763 returned the city to the Spanish in exchange for Florida and by the early nineteenth century, Havana rivalled New York, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro in terms of population and trade