BLAS DE LEZO

The sea, the sea, is full of mysteries that we have not yet deciphered. We know more about our solar system, about the universe in general, than about the sea, which is so close to us.

Almost everyone will have heard of great navigators such as Magellan, Elcano, Vasco de Gama, James Cook, Drake and many, many more who left us testimony of their voyages and adventures.

But today I want to remember the life of a Spanish military sailor, a great strategist, who deserves all my admiration and who is hardly known: Blas de Lezo.

He was born in Guipúzcoa in 1689 and died at the age of 52 in Cartagena de Indias. He lived in a difficult time for Spain, when the slave trade, spices from the Indies, pirates and privateers and, above all, the control of the remaining maritime routes were the motivation for the wars of those times. Spain in decline, France wanted to but could not and England “biting” everything it could.

Blas de Lezo was a sailor and soldier from the age of 17 until his death 35 years later. He lost his left leg, his left eye and the use of his right arm in naval combat.

There are several biographies: some passionate, others hardly credible, and both inside and outside Spain, a black legend has tarnished his memory. There is even the issue of some commemorative coins of the English victory in Cartagena de Indias, carried out before the English attack (the event was the humiliating defeat of the English fleet). Some illustrious Spanish researchers point out in their study that the coins were not issued by the English government but by an English company. It is hard to believe that His Majesty's government would allow the issue of coins without its control.

Whatever the case, I admire Blas de Lezo because I was also a sailor and I can better understand the hardships he suffered in the company of his men. History is what it is and is often distorted according to the “religion” of the person telling it.