name and affixed the seal of my office at the city of Matamoras, this 28th day of December, 1835. [L.S.] D. W. Smith. [16431 [BECKFORD et al DEPOSITION]
Consulate of the U.S. A., Matamoras, Mexico.
Joseph C. Beckford, William Reed, and Isaac F. Sheles, American seamen belonging to the schooner Hannah Elizabeth, of New Orleans, . being duly sworn upon the Holy Evangelists of Almighty God, do severally depose and say: That on the 13th day of November last they set sail on board the said schooner from the port of New Orleans, bound for the port of Matagorda, Texas; that on the 18th day of the same month, the said vessel stranded on the bar, in attempting to enter Matagorda bay, in which helpless situation she was fired into by the Mexican armed schooner General Bravo, and boarded by about twenty armed soldiers, under the command of two officers, who forcibly took them, (these deponents.) with others belonging to the wreck, on board the Bravo, where they were chained down in the hold of that vessel until she arrived off this port, on the 2d instant, when they -were landed at the Brazos de Santiago, and placed under a guard of. soldiers until they were liberated on the 24th instant, by order of the military commandant of this place, after having been subjected to a rigid confinement of thirty-six days. And these deponents further say, that the schooner Hannah Elizabeth cleared at the port of New Orleans, as aforesaid, with three guns and eight men. And further these deponents say not. Joseph C. Beckford, William Reed, his x mark, Isaac Sheles, his x mark. Sworn to and subscribed before me this 29th day of
December 1835.
D. W. Smith, Consul U. S. A.
Consulate of the U.S. A., Matamoras, Mexico.
I, Daniel W. Smith, consul of the United States of America at this port of Matamoras, do hereby certify and allest that the
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