When Saumarez stepped onboard the Covadonga, he recoiled at seeing its decks “promiscuously covered with carcasses, entrails and dismembered limbs.” One of Anson’s men confessed that war was awful to anyone with a “humane disposition.” The British had lost just three men; the Spanish had seen nearly seventy killed and more than eighty injured. Anson sent his surgeon across to help attend to their wounded, including Montero.
