ARM Montezuma

She was then purchased by the Spanish Navy, renamed Castilla and was their first steam warship to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

Therefore, its priority was to purchase its first fleet from the U.S. in order to displace the last remaining Spanish forces from its coasts.

[2][3] Due to diplomatic action in May 1842 by William Kennedy, Republic of Texas consul general in London, and Ashbel Smith, minister to England, she was delivered unarmed as a merchant ship with her guns in her hold.

For her last action before the Naval Battle of Campeche on 14 March 1843 she boarded the schooner ‘Two Sons’, had a glass of wine and left.

[5] At Toculxa, near Mexico, a fever was raging and on 29 April 1843 it was reported that Captain Richard Francis Cleaveland and several of the crew, had died, and nearly all the remainder were on the sick list.

[7] The Texas Navy commander Moore hoped to encounter the Guadalupe separate from her escort Montezuma.

[8][9] Austin and Wharton made for the Yucatán coast and encountered the Mexican squadron on 30 April 1843 between Lerma and Campeche.

Finally in August 1846 with Guadalupe she was sold to the Spanish Navy to become their first steam warships and delivered at Havana, Cuba.

[14] In 1849, the Castilla and León were used with two other Spanish steam ships to intervene in Italy along with French forces during the suppressing of the Roman Republic (1849).

The resulting recognition from the Pope, Sardinia, Prussia and Austria strengthened the Spanish government versus its rival Carlist faction.