CHAPTER VI.

THE REPUBLICANS AT GALVESTON—AURY, PERRY, MINA-EXPEDITION TO SOTO LA MARINA-LAFITTE, THE PIRATE-LONG'S EXPEDITION-DISPERSED AND DRIVEN FROM EAST TEXAS, LONG RALLIES A SECOND TIME AT GALVESTON— TAKES GOLIAD IS SENT BY THE SPANISH REPUBLICANS TO THE CITY OF MEXICO WHERE HE IS MYSTERIOUSLY MURDERED-MRS. LONG HEROICALLY AWAITS HIS RETURN-CONCLUSION OF THE PERIOD.*

Τίπο

HOUGH the Republicans had been totally defeated in Texas, a new organization, under Morelos, had taken place in Mexico. One of the measures adopted by the new party included the occupancy of the coast of Texas ; one of the most important points on which was the island and harbor of Galveston. Here a glance at the earlier history of this locality may not be amiss.

We think it more than probable that La Salle, in hunting for the mouth of the Mississippi River, visited Galveston in 1685-6.

It is likely that the next visitant to the island were the irregular seamen, the buccaneers and fillibusters, who, in the latter part of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, preyed upon Spanish commerce in the Gulf of Mexico.+

*Sketches of most of the men mentioned in this chapter will be found in their appropriate place in our Biographical section.

Buccaneer was derived from bucan, dried meat, as these men lived principally upon dried meat and fish. In the map of Joutel there is a place on the Lavaca River, marked as Bucan, because there the French killed buffaloes and dried the flesh. As to the word fillibuster, DeQuincy says: "This word is constantly spelt by our own and the American journals as fillibustiers or fillibusteros; but the word of nearly two centuries back, among the old original race of sea robbers, French and English, that made irregular war upon the Spanish shipping and maritime towns, was flibustier."

Galveston afforded a good harbor and a safe retreat to this class of famous freebooters, and was with them a favorite place of resort.

On old maps the island has various names. On the map in the possession of the Galveston Historical Society, it is called San Louis, the name said to have been given by La Salle. On that map, Matagorda Peninsula is. marked as Isle de Calabras-Snake Island-a name often applied in other maps to Galveston. On another old map the eastern end of the island is called Punta de Calabras, from its fancied resemblance to the head of a snake. The name by which the island is now called was from the Count de Galves, a governor of Louisiana under Spanish. rule, and afterwards Viceroy of Mexico. While the Spaniards never conceded that the French had any claim to Galveston, yet when Louisiana was under Spanish dominion, Galveston was reckoned a part of Louisiana. It was during this period that we find the present name first used. Gayarre, in his history of Louisiana, in giving the population of the different parishes for the year 1788, gives the population of Galveston as 268.

The first attempt to occupy the island by any recognized government was by the struggling Republicans of Mexico during the period of her Revolution. Don Jose Manuel Herrera was the minister of the Mexican patriots to the United States. He spent most of his time in New Orleans, where he became thoroughly informed of the advantages of Galveston as a naval station for the Republicans, and he took measures to occupy it. He sailed to the island on the 1st of September, 1816, taking with him Commodore Louis de Aury with a squadron of twelve or fifteen small vessels. Aury was of French origin, but had been an officer in the navy of New Granada, stationed at Carthagena. He had the reputation of a brave, skillful and

humane officer. On the 12th of September a meeting was held on the island, and a government organized. Aury was chosen civil and military governor of Texas and Galveston island. He took the oath of fidelity to the Republic of Mexico; the several branches of public administration were arranged; the Republican flag raised, and Galveston declared a port of entry of the Mexican Republic. The vessels of Aury were at once dispatched to prey upon Spanish commerce; and they were so successful that they soon almost banished the Spanish flag from that Gulf which Philip II. had threatened to convert into a Spanish lake.

On the 24th of November, the party on the island was reinforced by the arrival of Xavier Mina, with about 200 men and a few ships. Mina was a native of Navarre. In 1808 he abandoned his studies in the University of Saragossa, and became a guerrilla chieftain against the French. He won distinction, and acquired the title of Captain General of Navarre and Upper Arragon. Having been captured and imprisoned, he succeeded in making his escape, and sought refuge in England. He found friends. among some of the English nobility, and a special friend in Gen. Scott, of the United States army, then in London. He at first intended to attempt the conquest of Florida, in conjunction with Toledo; but Toledo having deserted to the Spaniards, Mina sailed for Galveston, intending from this point to make a descent upon the coast of Mexico. Mina threw up a mud fort west of the point occupied by Aury, and active preparations were made for his contemplated expedition to Mexico.

While Aury and Mina were occupying the island, Perry had taken possession of Bolivar Point with about 100 men. That enterprising officer, after escaping from the disastrous battle of Medina, in 1813, had returned to

Louisiana, and at once commenced his preparations for another campaign against Mexico. While several of his associates were indicted in the United States District Court for a violation of the neutrality laws, Perry escaped, by fixing his encampment west of the Sabine.

This comparatively large number of men was well supplied with provisions and other necessaries by the captures of Aury's privateers. Avowedly, they only depredated upon Spanish commerce; but, unfortunately, Aury had taken into his service some men of desperate character, who made captures of any vessels found in the Gulf. Among the captures were a number of slavers; and the slaves were smuggled into Louisiana, in violation of the laws of the United States, which denounced the slave-trade as piracy. This induced the Collector of Customs of New Orleans to write to Mr. Crawford, the Secretary of the Treasury, at Washington, as follows: "I deem it my duty to state that the most shameful violations of the slave act, as well as our own revenue laws, continue to be practiced with impunity by a motley mixture of freebooters and smugglers at Galveston, under the Mexican flag, being, in fact, the re-establishment of the Barrataria band, somewhat more out of the reach of justice. The establishment was recently made there by a Commodore Aury, with a few small schooners from Aux Cayes, manned in a great measure with refugees from Barrataria, and mulattoes." Another letter to the Treasury Department says of Aury that "his principal dependence for men was upon one hundred and thirty brigand negroes, a set of desperate and bloody dogs." After the fall of Napoleon, Generals Lalleman and Ricaud of his staff, with about one hundred officers, entered Texas, ascended the Trinity River and erected a fort, intending to cultivate the vine. Not succeeding to their