Action of 17 November 1865

On 24 September 1865, Spanish Admiral José Manuel Pareja declared the beginning of hostilities against Chile, establishing the blockade of its ports, given the refusal of this country to accept Spanish demands.[2] This caused the Chilean government to declare war on Spain the next day, in response to Pareja's decision.[3]

The Spanish admiral wanted to block the entire Chilean coast with his warships, but due to its extension, he had to confine himself with difficulty to the ports of Caldera, Coquimbo, La Herradura, Valparaíso, Tomé and Talcahuano.[4] In the first days of war, the frigate Resolución was entrusted the blockade of the last two mentioned ports, and for the blockade to be effective, it had to patrol the entire bay of Concepción, due to the small ports that were in the zone.[5]

To optimize the blockade of the bay of Concepcion, the Spaniards dispatched from the Resolución a 2-gun gunboat. The objective of this gunboat was to prevent the traffic of smaller vessels from Talcahuano to Penco and Tomé.[5]

On 17 November, in front of Tomé, the Chilean tugboat Independencia approached dangerously to the Spanish gunboat, who immediately began to attack him with his guns.[5] The Chilean ship simulated surrender, turned off the lights and stopped its steam engine. The Spaniards approached and proceeded to board the tugboat to capture it, but at that moment they were surprised by a detachment of at least a hundred Chilean soldiers who were manning the ship.[6] The Spaniards were forced to surrender and the gunboat was captured. Later, the Spanish gunboat was sent by his captors to the port of Constitution.[6]

The capture of the Spanish gunboat was mentioned by the Chilean newspaper El Mercurio, in the edition of 25 November 1865 and also in the American newspaper The New York Times, in the number of 1 January 1866.[6] The Spanish newspaper La Época reported the event on 19 January of that year.

This event is part of the series of negative results that the Spanish fleet had when blocking Chilean ports.[7] The blockade proved ineffective and added to other war failures, such as the battle of Papudo on 26 November, which led the Spaniards to end the blockade of the ports in early 1866, with the sole exception of Valparaíso.[8]