Lone Star Rising: T.S. Wasp and the Heart of Texas by Jason Vail

Author:Jason Vail [Vail, Jason]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Hawk Publishing
Published: 2013-05-02T04:00:00+00:00

Lone Star Rising: A Short History of the Republic of Texas and the Free States of America

by Victor D. Lautenberg

Emilio Arco, the Spanish consul in New Orleans, was a careful man. He had worried that the Spanish frigate would not be able to stop the Wasp.

When word of the disaster that had befallen the Buena Vista reached New Orleans, he hired boats to fetch the survivors, then hurried off to the Governor’s Palace to register a stern protest at the unprovoked attack against a peaceful Spanish vessel.

The French provincial governor received his complaint with dismay and disgust, for he had never liked the policy that required him to cooperate with the upstarts in the desert, because unlike Armand Rochelle he had serious doubts that they could be kept under control, and now the rabble had proved his reservations to be correct by causing an international incident. He promised Arco that the French government had no part in the attack, that there would be a full investigation, and that the ruffians were a bunch of pirates who would be severely dealt with should they fall into the hands of the French government.

Not deceived by these assurances, Arco went straight back to the wharf where he hired a fast schooner to carry a dispatch to Havana, the headquarters of Spain’s Caribbean fleet. He did not trust the French to take care of the Wasp. Spanish iron would have to do it.

And he had information, bought at enormous cost, that neither the governor nor Rochelle suspected was in his possession: the Wasp’s destination.

Since that fateful day in November 1820, many have speculated just how a Spanish fleet managed to catch the Wasp off Calais. For it certainly was no coincidence that such a force happened to be in foreign waters at the precise time as the Wasp. Yet no one has been able to answer that question until now.

But in the Spanish naval archives at Madrid, I have found correspondence that identifies the source, as Arco waged a decade-long struggle to be reimbursed for the substantial bribe paid for the information. It was Adele La Fontaine, the baroness de Crequy, who had sold the Wasp’s destination for £2,000 and a vial of strychnine.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.