Montiano and the Fiasco at Bloody Marsh While Spanish privateers harassed English shipping on the Atlantic seaboard, plans went ahead for an offensive war on Georgia. In Spain the king was particularly eager to launch such an attack. A large British force commanded by Admiral Edward Vernon had assaulted Cartagena in 1741, and the Council of the Indies believed (without any real basis) that Vernon had drawn many of his soldiers from Georgia and Carolina. With his best fighting men in New Granada, Oglethorpe had become more vulnerable to attack. (Tepaske GSF)