Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/265

 

THE NAVY AND ARMY OF MEXICO IN 1827.

The Navy.

the Spanish troops, after being driven from the Capital and the continent, occupied the Casile of St. John of Ulloa, which is situated upon a sand bank nearly opposite the town of Veracruz, the necessity of expelling them from this last stronghold, and the impossibility of effecting it without a naval force, induced the Government to purchase six gunboats and two sloops of war in the United States, which, with one brig, and two launches, on the Pacific side, constituted, in 1823, the whole Navy of the Republic.

During the siege of St. John, which lasted till November, 1825, this force was gradually increased; until, in January 1827, it consisted of one ship of the line, (formerly the Spanish Asia, now the Congress) two frigates, (the Libertad and Tepeyac,) the corvette, Morelos ; brigs of war, Guerrero, Victoria, Bravo, and Constante; the schooner Hermon, four gun-boats, four large launches, and two pilot-boats, used in the conveyance of the Government correspondence with California.

The expense of the whole with that of the naval departments, stores, pay of officers and men, repairs, &c., is estimated at 1,309,045 dollars, and this it will probably never exceed, as Mexico, both from the thinness of the population upon her coasts, and from the natural difficulties of the access