Tornado was a bark-rigged screw steam corvette[2][3] of the Spanish Navy, first launched at Clydebank, Scotland in 1863, as the Confederate raider CSS Texas.

[5] In early 1862, Lt. George T. Sinclair was sent to England, with orders to build a clipper propeller for cruising purposes, and to take command of her when she was ready for sea.

[5][dead link‍] What Sinclair did, was to arrange, with the help of the Confederate diplomat James M. Mason, for an issue of bonds, each equal to 25 bales of cotton, weight 12,500 lb (5,700 kg).

[5][dead link‍] Meanwhile, the completion of Pampero was further delayed by labor troubles, and the seizure of Alexandria, another Confederate vessel in production at Lairds, by the British government.

[5][dead link‍] Pampero herself first came to the attention of Thomas H. Dudley, United States Consul in Liverpool, in the spring of 1863, when he made an investigative tour of Northern England and Scotland, looking for any warships being built for the Confederates.

Dudley left behind a spy in Thomsons yard, who soon reported that the vessel was rigged in the same manner as Alabama, the drawings of which, he was told, were in Glasgow.

At 18:15, before arriving at the anchoring ground, she discovered a suspicious steamer weighing anchor and apparently getting ready to put to sea, for which reason the commander of Gerona, Don Benito Escalera, thought fit to proceed towards her to see if he could obtains news, and to be at the same time in readiness to follow in her track, should she turn out to be either of the vessels indicated to him by the Spanish government.

[14] At 20:00, the frigate, thinking that she perceived that Tornado was putting herself in motion, and having been confirmed in that opinion by the showing of the signal agreed upon on board the Spanish schooner, commenced to move in pursuit.

[14] The course which Tornado took was in every way suspicious, for she kept as close into the north-west shore of this island as she could, coasting along it at a very short distance as far as Cape Tristão, where she put to sea steering towards the north.

The commander made the captain come on board Gerona, and this latter answered the questions that were put to him with insolent and insulting words so that he was obliged to be called to order.

During the Ten Years' War, she saw service in Cuban waters and had a notorious incident with the American filibustering steamer Virginius, that had been bought for the purpose of being used for landing military expeditions on Cuba in aid of the insurgents.

Having a crew of 52 (chiefly Americans and Britons) and 103 passengers (mostly Cubans),[17] Virginius was sighted by Tornado, and she immediately fled in a northerly direction toward Jamaica, but was chased by her, captured and taken into Santiago de Cuba.

From 1898 until her destruction by the Nationalist aviation in 1938, she served as a hospice for poor children of sailors and fishermen killed or drowned in maritime accidents, in the port of Barcelona.