pounders. The brig Galveston (later named Archer) was delivered in April 1840, but never went to sea on a major cruise.[34]

As soon as the new vessels were acquired for the Texas navy, Lamar sent them to sea under the command of Commodore Edwin Moore to patrol off Matamoros, Tampico, Vera Cruz, and the coast of Yucatán. They were without authority to capture Mexican vessels or bombard Mexican ports, pending the outcome of treaty negotiations in Mexico. The effect, nevertheless, soon proved disastrous to Mexican commerce. The editor of the Jalapa Conciliador of October 18, 1840, lamented that Mexican trade and commerce were being discouraged by the presence of the Texan vessels off the Mexican coast, and on October 22, 1840, the Vera Cruz Censor complained that Mexican commerce was being tied up by the mere presence of the Texan warships, even though the Texans had made no actual captures. The editor of El Censor was already quite alarmed by what was happening. Texas, he declared, was no longer a mere boy; it was becoming "more robust each day. . . . Supreme Government, awake! . . . a little longer and it will be too late."[35]

This then was the navy in which Love placed such confidence. In addition to sending the navy out, he suggested ordering a draft of militiamen from each county "to be ready for service." "It is wise," he said, "to provide against contingencies in time. If the necessity should not exist, it costs nothing."

By April 25 a volunteer company had been enrolled at Galveston and was ready to march at a moment's notice to protect the frontier.[36]  At the same time, but from a different quarter, came assurance of aid from the United States. From Mississippi, Henry S. Foote, then in the process of writing his history of Texas, upon receiving news of the Federalist disaster at Morelos, wrote Lamar immediately to inform him that should Texas need military aid from Mississippi he would "immediately raise a body of volunteers of the right sort to be of service to you." "I now assure you," he continued, "that if you really desire aid from this quarter; or if events should at [any] time make such aid desirable, I will immediately turn out and, with the assistance