Captain Perry at once followed up his success by ascending the river with the _Vixen_ and the captured steamer _Petrita_. A battery of four good twenty-fours, advantageously located at a bend in the river, was abandoned by the Mexicans, and at Tabasco, which lies seventy-two miles up the river, only three shots were needed to bring down the enemy’s flag. The result of cutting the enemy’s territory in two here, was that Yucatan was thereafter governed and her resources appropriated by the Americans until the war ended. Of course the chief work in hand was the capture of Vera Cruz. On the night of November 20, 1846, Lieutenant Parker, two midshipmen, and five sailors, in a small boat from the brig _Somers_, entered Vera Cruz harbor and burned the bark _Creole_ that was lying under the guns of the forts. This was a right valorous but a mistaken expedition, for it appears from the papers of Commodore Conner that not only did he know nothing of it until the flames of the ship were seen, but had he known of it he would have stopped it. The _Creole_ was supposed to be a blockade runner loaded with arms, and that she had slipped in. As a matter of fact, Conner allowed her to go in, and she was the medium by which communications were carried on with spies and disaffected Mexicans who had kept Conner well posted as to the condition of affairs in Mexico, and as to the troops, guns, etc., in and around Vera Cruz. Indeed, it is said that among the more valuable services of Conner in this war was the gathering of exact information about the enemy. [Illustration: Capture of Tabasco by Perry’s Expedition. _From a lithograph designed and drawn on stone by Lieutenant H. Walke, U. S. N._] Another mishap occurred when the _Somers_, while chasing a blockade runner on December 8th, carried sail so hard that she capsized and lost over forty men--half of her crew. She was commanded at the time by Commander Raphael Semmes, who gained fame in the Confederate cruiser _Alabama_ in the Civil War. But the worst feature of the work on the coast was facing the tropical fevers. The men enjoyed meeting an enemy they could see, but there was no defence against the malarial germs from the swamps. The yellow fever appeared, as well as other less malignant fevers, and scurvy came in the list of terrors. Nevertheless, the men remained at their posts uncomplainingly, and in March, 1847, the force before Vera Cruz numbered seventy ships and transports, with General Winfield Scott’s army of 12,600 men on board.