page_title: Spanish corvette Tornado
section_title: Spanish service
hierarchical_section_title: Spanish corvette Tornado / Spanish service
caption_attribution_description: Español: Captura del vapor estadounidense Virginius por la corbeta española Tornado (31 de octubre de 1873) English: Capture of the North American steamer Virginius by the Spanish corvette Tornado (October 31, 1873)
context_page_description: Tornado was a bark-rigged screw steam corvette of the Spanish Navy, first launched at Clydebank, Scotland in 1863, as the Confederate raider CSS Texas. She is most famous for having captured the North American filibustering ship Virginius, which led to the "Virginius Affair", which afterwards led to the Spanish-American Crisis of 1873.
context_section_description: She was brought into Spanish service as Tornado, and rated as screw corvette. 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. Virginius had been engaged in this work for months, being even called by one of the Havana newspapers as the famous filibuster steamer Virginius.
  On 31 October 1873, she was bound from Kingston, Jamaica to some point in Cuba, flying the US flag, and carrying a cargo of war material. Having a crew of 52 (chiefly Americans and Britons) and 103 passengers (mostly Cubans), 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. Fifty-three of the crew and passengers were condemned to death by court-martial, and between 4–8 November, were shot; among them were eight American citizens.
  The capture on the high seas of a vessel vearing the American flag, presents a very grave question, which will need investigation; ...and if it prove that an American citizen has been wrongfully executed, this government will require most ample reparation.
  Relations between Spain and the United States became strained, and war seemed imminent, but on 8 December, the Spanish government agreed to surrender Virginius to the US on 16 December, to deliver the survivors of the crew and passengers to a US warship at Santiago, and to salute the US flag at Santiago on 25 December if it was not proved before that date that Virginius was not entitled to sail under American colors. Virginius foundered off Cape Hatteras as she was being towed to the United States by Ossipee. George Henry Williams, the Attorney General of the United States decided before 25 December that Virginius was the property of General Quesada and other Cubans, and had had no right to carry the American flag.
  Under an agreement of the 27 February 1875, the Spanish government paid to the United States an indemnity of $80,000 for the execution of the Americans, and another indemnity to the British government.
  Tornado was converted to a torpedo-training vessel in 1886. 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. She was finally broken up in 1939.
caption: U.S steamer Virginius surrenders to the Spanish corvette Tornado. Oil on canvas 1873.
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