Republic of Texas Schooner
Stephen F. Austin enjoyed the ocean breeze. After eighteen years in Mexican
prisons for suspicion of treason, it felt good to be out. The emprasario of the largest colony in Texas had made his way from
Mexico City to New Orleans. From there, the schooner San Felipe would take him down the gulf coast to the Texas port of Velasco. As the port came into view, any anticipated
homecomings were cut short; a Mexican warship appeared on the
horizon.
During Austin's absence, Mexico's Centralist government, led
by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, decided to reign in its remote colony with taxes, import duties and armed troops.
Texas colonists greatly resented this sudden intrusion. For years, they had lived tax free, courtesy
of a distracted Mexican government beset with internal discord. To enforce the collection of import duties along the
Texas coast, Mexico dispatched an ill-tempered, hard drinking navy lieutenant
with few endearing qualities, Thomas "Mexico" Thompson.
Prior to joining the
Mexican navy, the English born Thompson was a down and out merchant captain
looking for a second chance. That second
chance would come from extorting Texas merchant vessels at the helm of his
warship Correo Mejicano. Texans saw him for what he really was, a mere
pirate in the guise of a Mexican naval officer. Thompson, on the other hand, despised
those ungrateful Yankee Texans who
refused to support their government. The
fuse was lit.
On September 1, 1835, Thompson attempted to seize the merchant
vessel Tremont, anchored just
off the coast near Velasco. Suspecting the Tremont of smuggling illegal goods , he sent over a marine detachment
in rowboats to take possession. In a boiling rage, the ship's owner, Thomas
McKinney, watched the seizure unfold from ashore. He decided to take matters into his own
hands. Accompanied by thirty armed
volunteers, he boarded the steamboat Laura
and steamed out to the Tremont. Pulling alongside the seized vessel,
McKinney's men opened fire with their muskets on the marines. Fleeing for their lives, Thompson's men jumped
back into their rowboats and paddled back to the Correo.
As he approached Velasco, the swashbuckling skipper of the San Felipe, Captain William Hurd, armed the
two 12 pound cannons he had on board. Each
despising the other, Thompson and Hurd had been looking for each other for
weeks. Both boasted they would capture
or summarily execute the other. Now they
would get their chance.
After securing the Tremont,
the Laura steamed out to the San Felipe. Seeing the
"Father of Texas" on board was a huge morale booster for McKinney and
his volunteers. The Laura towed the San Felipe
back to Velasco where Austin and his fellow passengers disembarked. Hurd and 20 volunteers boarded the San Felipe. It was time to settle up with
"Mexico" Thompson; they were going after him.
Hurd pulled up alongside the Correo as the evening darkness approached. Thompson called out to the Texans with his bullhorn, "Let go your
anchors, you damned Yankees!"
Instead the Texans let go with their cannons and muskets. For forty five minutes, the Correo and San Felipe traded shots in the darkness. The lack of wind led to a thick cloud of gun
smoke that shrouded the opposing vessels.
Screams of the wounded mingled with the thunder of the cannons. Thompson was wounded in the thighs and one of
his cannons was dismounted; the Correo seemed
to have gotten the worst of it. Only the
smoky darkness prevented his ship from being boarded.
Since he couldn't find the Correo in the dark, Hurd decided to return to Velasco and resume
the chase in the morning. Thompson also
decided to withdraw but was in hostile waters.
He would have to hope for a steady wind to fill his sails and propel the
Correo to Matamoros. By morning, he had made little headway;
Velasco was still in sight and the San
Felipe was being remanned and rearmed.
To make matters worse, she would be towed by the steamboat Laura and wouldn't need sails to reach
her target.
To Thompson's utter horror, he watched the Laura and the freshly armed San Felipe slowly coming toward
him. Low on ammunition, manpower and
wind, he decided to surrender. Along
with five of his men, he was placed in irons on his own ship. The rest of his crew, including the marines,
were sent ashore. The Texans helped
themselves to the Correo's small arms
and army payroll. Accompanied by the San Felipe, Hurd ran up an American
flag on the captured vessel and set sail for New Orleans
Since Texas, a Mexican colony, didn't have an admiralty
court, Captain Hurd sought justice in a United States admiralty court. Upon arrival, he claimed that Thompson was
committing piracy against the San Felipe,
a U.S. registered vessel. Thompson and
his men were thrown into the county jail to await trial in a district court. The
Mexican Consulate protested that Thompson was a commissioned Mexican officer and couldn't be jailed for enforcing Mexican laws. Thompson, however, didn't have his signed paper
commission with him for proof.
The trial became a sensation when
New Orleans' most prominent attorneys represented the opposing parties. District Attorney Henry Carleton, a former
U.S. infantry lieutenant that fought in the Battle of New Orleans, represented the
prosecution while future U.S. Senator and Ambassador to Spain, Pierre Soule,
represented the defendant. As accusations
were hurled, tempers grew increasingly short and hilariously childish. Like a scene out of a slapstick comedy, the
opposing barristers began hurling their inkwells and law books at each
other. Angered by such a melee in a
court of law, the presiding judge threw both Carleton and Soule in jail for six
hours to cool off. Closing arguments
were insufferably long and impassioned.
Soule presented his final speech in his native French.
After eighteen hours, the jury
deadlocked and Thompson was set free. Nevertheless,
the guy just couldn't catch a break; he was arrested again for debt based on
charges from past creditors.
In order to placate a very angry Mexico,
federal officials were pressured by U.S. Secretary of State, John Forsyth, to
enforce U.S. neutrality laws in a more even handed manner. Ironically, the even handed manner led to the
arrest of Captain Hurd himself for pirating a Mexican vessel. Not surprisingly, he was promptly acquitted
by a sympathetic jury.
The incident died down but not the
outrage. To say the least, Mexico felt
humiliated over the incident. "Would
not the United States have protested with unexcelled indignation," wrote
Mexican Secretary of War Jose Maria Tornel, "if the schooner Grumpus, or any other of their war
vessels, had been captured by the Correo
and brought at once with its entire crew into a Mexican port?" A month
after the trial, the Mexican schooner Bravo
fired into Velasco. The opening
shots of the Texas Revolution had begun.
