Continued Foreign Intrigues and Turmoil, I8IJ-I8I8
143
to the United States. The Philadelphia and Baltimore merchants learned from the officers the sad state of affairs and decided to withdraw their support. At the end of October Mina set sail for Galveston with the purpose of inviting Aury to join forces with him for an immediate attack on the Mexican Gulf ports. The four ships left Port Au Prince on October 27, 1816. Hardly were they on the high sea when yellow fever broke out on board to take a toll of 30 men. Of the 300 or more who had started from Baltimore fewer than 150 arrived in Galveston. 51 Aury, too, was having troubles of his own. His supplies were running short; he was still convalescing from his wound; and his authority had not been fully restored. He was in no mood to welcome visitors. After eight days of negotiations he permitted the men to land. Mier arrived shortly afterwards from New Orleans, where he had been keeping in close touch with the Friends of Mexican Emancipation. Mina now went to New Orleans, and succeeded in obtaining credit to purchase two additional vessels. Anxious to put his Mexican enterprise into execu- tion, he sailed on March 1, 1817, for Galveston. st Mina had no idea how narrowly his plans had escaped miscarriage during his absence. One day not long after Mina's departure, Aury announced that because of the difficult entrance to the port in Galveston he was going to move his men to Matagorda. Colonel Perry informed Aury that should he abandon Galveston, he would have to take Mina's men along, because he had pledged to feed and care for them until the return of their chief. Troubles in Gal-veston. The pirate leader, however, was not accustomed to receiving instructions from a subaltern. Aury immediately ordered a cannon mounted in front of his tent, called out his sailors, and formed his Negro troops in battle array under Joseph Savary. Perry was not to be bluffed. He, too, mustered his American volunteers and sent an urgent message to Colonel Mariano Montilla, who had been left in command of Mina's followers. Montilla came up on the double and placed his men between the two embattled contestants. He warned Aury that if trouble started, 51 Onis to the Captain General of Cuba, February 28, 1817, Paj1les d1 Cuba, A. G. I.; J.M. Hebb (?) to Baldomero Lopez, January 12, 1819, Audencia d1 Mezi&o, Pa,;eles_de Estado, A.G. I . S9 Onis to the Capitan General of Cuba, February 28, 18x 7; Diego Morphy to same, December 4, 1816, and March 10, 1817, Pap11us d1 Cuba, A.G. I.; William D. Robinson, Memoirs of tl,11 Me::&i&an Revolution; including a 11a"atn11 of tl,1 1::&jedUwn of General Xavier M;na, I, 133.
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