measure, and gave the newspapers genuine material for a "noise." When this affair, including the trip up the Pánuco, ended, Conner despatched his lieutenant southeastward in the Vixen, accompanied by two gunboats. December 21, at the town of Laguna on El Carmen Island, Yucatan, Perry seized a couple of small forts, garrisoned by a few timid soldiers, and disabled the guns; and after reinforcing the blockade of Tabasco River, looking into the coastal waters, and making two prizes on his return voyage, he joined the squadron two days after Christmas. A visit of Conner's to the same point the following month ended important operations in this quarter for some time. The occupation of Laguna checked a thriving illicit commerce by the river that entered the Gulf here.[1]
All this while the haughty, outstanding challenge — the scalp-lock, so to speak — of Mexico, the fortress of San Juan de Ulúa in Vera Cruz harbor, remained secure. The capture of it, many of our citizens felt, would wrap the Gulf in a blaze of American glory; and young Porter, young Farragut and other possible Decaturs had plans of attack ready. But older men thought the enterprise impracticable for the navy alone. At the beginning of the war Bancroft expressly notified Conner that his forces were not deemed adequate for such an undertaking. Not only had the fortress been strongly and shrewdly constructed, but the channel that led to it was narrow and winding, so that a mishap would have endangered all of the attacking vessels. The French had taken it in 1838, but only by good luck and a sort of treachery, and since that year it had been greatly strengthened. Conner and Scott agreed that it could not be captured by the fleet. But in March, 1847, misfortune overtook Ulúa, for Scott, supported brilliantly by the naval forces, laid siege to Vera Cruz.[2]
To the Home Squadron and its commander as well as to the "castle" this event signified a great deal. In fact it brought Conner both to the climax and to the tragedy of his professional career. It enabled him to display in the debarkation his real abilities; and then precipitated him on the eve of a triumph into oblivion. His regular term as commander had expired in November, 1846, and Perry notified him that a successor was ready. But Conner held Bancroft's promise of an indefinite continuance in his position; he doubtless felt that after
