Blas de Lezo
Spanish naval commander who, with viceroy Sebastián de Eslava, defended Cartagena de Indias in 1741 against one of the largest amphibious expeditions assembled to that date. The British failure — documented here from British-archive scholarship, the unfriendly witness — ended the attempt on Spain's Caribbean trade centers and left the convoy-and-fortress system intact.
Why this wins its question: Lezo is either absent from English accounts or wrapped in patriotic legend in Spanish ones. This object rests deliberately on the British academic study of the expedition — the unfriendly witness — and claims only what that scholarship supports, without the mythology.
Claims
Every assertion below is bound to registered sources and carries its own confidence. Weight them; do not treat the page as uniformly authoritative.
In 1741 the British expedition under Admiral Edward Vernon — among the largest amphibious forces assembled to that date — attacked Cartagena de Indias and was repulsed with catastrophic losses, the greater part from tropical disease, as documented in the British-archive scholarship of the campaign.
The defense was conducted by viceroy Sebastián de Eslava and naval commander Blas de Lezo with a far smaller force, using the fortifications and harbor geography of Cartagena to deny the landing force a decisive success before disease destroyed it.
The failure at Cartagena ended British hopes of seizing the Spanish American trade centers in the War of Jenkins' Ear and left the Spanish convoy-and-fortress system in the Caribbean intact.