Notwithstanding the enormous sums expended on coast defences, the fortress of Ulúa alone having cost nearly forty millions of pesos, the people of New Spain, besides being in constant fear of the armaments of hostile powers, were still in dread of corsairs. In November, 1788, a royal decree was issued in answer to the viceroy's petition ordering two brigantines to be constructed for coast-guard service against pirates and smugglers.[1] Of course the operations of the former were now confined to the more thinly populated portions of the coast; for such raids, except made by licensed freebooters under the name of privateersmen, were long since discountenanced by the nations of Europe.
After the beginning of the war between England and Spain, in 1796, it was believed that an expedition was being prepared for an attack on Vera Cruz, and during the following year eight thousand troops were cantoned at Jalapa, Córdoba, and Perote in readiness for action; but England had now sufficient occupation for all her forces on land and sea, in the long protracted struggle with the great Napoleon. A few months later all the encampments were broken up, excepting one of six hundred men who were stationed on the plain near Buena Vista in the vicinity of Vera Cruz, and so great was the mortality among this corps that it soon became necessary to remove the survivors into the city.
Until 1629 the offices of corregidor of Vera Cruz and governor of Ulúa were vested in the same person, but in that year they were separated, the commander of the fortress receiving a salary of one thousand one
- ↑ They arrived in Vera Cruz about two years afterward. Later a schooner was built for the same purpose.
and fortress consisted of the permanent battalion of Vera Cruz, organized in 1793, its strength being 1,000 men, a company of veteran artillery, and two of militia, 310 men, and the regiment of Vera Cruz lancers, enrolled in 1767, nominally 1,000 strong. Lerdo de Tejada, in Doc. Hist. Mex., Apunt. Hist., 383-4. In 1784 the garrison of Vera Cruz was reënforced by two infantry regiments from Mexico, Id., 309; but these appear to have been soon withdrawn, for in Gac. Mex., ii. 290, it is stated that in 1786 the garrison of Vera Cruz mustered only 1,360 men.
