Domingo Belestá

Domingo Belestá y Pared (Alicante, 4 March 1741 – Cádiz, 7 December 1819) was a Spanish military engineer who served in the American Revolutionary, French Revolutionary and Peninsular wars. His surname also appears in the literature of the Peninsular War misspelt as Bellesta or Ballesta.

After enlisting as a Cadet in 1761 in Spain's Regimiento de Infantería de Flandes, where he was promoted to second lieutenant, in 1765 Belestá went on to study Mathematics at Spain's military engineering school, the Real Academia Militar de Matemáticas y Fortificación, in Barcelona. Promoted to captain in 1778, he stayed on at the Academy, where he taught Drawing, until 1781. After proclaiming the independence of Portugal,