Lase Filibustering Expeditions and Independence, z817-z820 159
The destrucei,m of Champ d'Asile. Eight days Castaneda waited to hear from General Rigaud. Without ships or sufficient troops it was impossible to attack Galveston, which was eighteen miles from the coast. The supplies were running low, the unhealthy climate was be- ginning to affect the soldiers, and many of the horses were in poor condition. He concluded that the French on the island, numbering some hundred and fifty men and a few officers, half-starved and without munitions, were no longer a serious menace. He, therefore, decided to proceed with the destruction of the abandoned settlement. Leaving his temporary camp at Punta Busto, he marched to Cayo Gallardo, where he learned that Champ d'Asile was near the mouth of the Trinity. Castaneda and his men reached their objective on October 30 and im- mediately began to demolish the fortifications and burn the cabins. The colony, laid out in the form of a pentagon, was surrounded by a ditch. One fort had been erected near the river and a second was centered among the cabins, which were arranged in a semicircle. The two forts had emplacements for sixteen guns and the twenty-eight log structures were provided with loopholes. Castaneda observed that had the French chosen to fight, they would have taken many lives before being compelled to surrender their stronghold. Two whole days were spent in demolition. With the cabins and forts burned, the ditches filled and the embankments leveled, the first ob- jective of the expedition was accomplished. Castaneda, in destroying Champ d'Asile, had duplicated the mission of Alonzo De Leon; for a second time, French aspirations for the occupation of Texas were left in ashes.u After hearing the Mass said by Chaplain Francisco Trevino on November I, the expedition started its return march. Colonels Fabius Tourney and Jean Charrasin and Lieutenant Joseph Holzer, French officers who had deserted their companions to offer their services to Spain, accompanied Castaneda. The expedition arrived in San Antonio on November 22 without having punished the Indians or driven out the illegal merchants from the old post of Nacogdoches. For this Castaneda received no rebuke from the Viceroy. Instead, Apodaca not only exonerated, but in fact Castaneda to Rigaud, Punta de Busto, October 19, 1818-transmitted in letter of Apodaca to tbe Minister of State, January 31, 1819, Pa,Pttles dtt Estado, Al,xico, 106-113, A.G. I. 26 Apodaca to the Minister of State, Jan. 31, 1819; Juan de Castaiieda, Diario, Pajtfles de Estado, Mezico, 76, 95, 96, A. G. I.
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