The _Mississippi_ in those days was among ordinary war vessels, what the racers of the Atlantic to-day are among common steamers,—“an ocean greyhound.” Fleetly the gallant vessel moved south, passing exultingly the Bahamas, where many of our transports were waiting for a change of wind. Many of these were “ocean tramps”—hulks of such age and rottenness, that a norther would surely strand them. The _Mississippi_ stopping at Havana, March 15, 1847, was after two days then pointed for Vera Cruz, arriving on the evening of the 20th. ----- [15] See Parker’s Recollections of a Naval Officer, with reply of P. S. P. Conner, _Army and Navy Journal_, February 2, and April 19, 1884, and _Magazine of American History_, July, 1885. [16] Chaplain Fitch W. Taylor, _The Broad Pennant_. [17] See, for perhaps the best brief statement of the causes leading to the Mexican war and the part played by Polk, the article “Wars;” by Prof. Alexander Johnston, Lalor’s _Encyclopaedia_. Vol. III, p. 1091. CHAPTER XXII. “COMMODORE PERRY COMMANDS THE SQUADRON.” THE precise methods and almost immutable laws of military science required that the American invasion of Mexico in 1847 should be at the exact spot on which Cortez landed two centuries before, and where the French disembarked in 1830, and in 1865. This was at the only port on the Gulf coast of Mexico, in which large vessels could anchor. Ships entered by the North channel or fastened to rings in the castle walls. Our war vessels lay a little south of the Vera Cruz founded by the Spanish buccaneer. With but a few skirmishes and little loss, the line of circumvallation was completed by the 18th, and named Camp Washington. Ground was broken for intrenchments, and platforms were built for the mortars which were placed in sunken trenches out of sight from the city. Waiting for a pause in the raving norther, and then seizing opportunity by the foremost hair of the forelock, the sailors landed ten mortars and four twenty-four pounder guns. By the 22d, seven of the mortars were in position on their platforms. Most of these latter were of the small bronze pattern called coehorns, after their inventor the Dutch engineer, Baron Mennon de Coehorn. These pieces could be handled by two men. A few mortars were of the ten-inch pattern. This was a pitiful array of ordnance to batter down a walled city, and a nearly impregnable castle. With these in activity, both city and castle, if well provisioned, could hold out for months. Shells falling perpendicularly would destroy women and children, but do little harm to soldiers. The forty other mortars and the heavy guns were somewhere at sea on the transports and as yet unheard of, while every day the shadow of the dreaded _vomito_ stalked nearer. Vera Cruz must be taken before “King Death in his Yellow Robe” arrived. The Mexicans for the nonce, prayed for his coming.