Flag and water of the "Atlas" that were delivered by the people of Vigo to the Navy

This is literally the text of Avelino Rodríguez Elías, read in his Conference. "The Navy of Vigo through twenty centuries", which took place in the late Vigo-Liceo on November 25, 1924. Avelino Rodríguez Elías was an official chronist of Vigo, a member of the Royal Galician Academy, the Academy of Sciences of Portugal and the Historical Institute of Minho:

Known to this background (Avelino refers to the corsarian fleet of the late 18th in Vigo), it should not be surprising, although it causes us admiration for the daring of the case, the capture of a French ship in the middle of the Bay of Vigo, by our sailors.

The fact was this way: In one of the days of July 1808, the "Atlas" war ship, which had already been in Vigo in 1805, formed part of the French-Spanish combined squadron sent by Admiral Villeneuve, was founded in Vigo Bay.

He saluted the square, which he already believed in the power of Napoleon's troops, and shortly after it was surrounded by several armed boats and manned by sailors from these shores, which formed the subtle forces created on the occasion of the war with England.

The crew of the French ship did not dislike, as, as I say, they believed that Vigo was in the power of the emperor, and they let the small ships approach, assuming them in peace, and that they would certainly greet them. And so it was easy for the brave Vigo sailors to come aboard the ship and master the ship's endowment, which, taken by surprise, could hardly resist.

The Atlas flag was sent by our countrymen to the Supreme Board of Seville, and then passed to the Naval Museum of Madrid.

The Atlas flag belongs to the funds of the Naval Museum of Madrid, and it is at least surprising that there is no explicit reference to the historical fact (one of the most relevant at the maritime level of the War of Independence) in which men in much of the Casa Armadora de Marcó del Pont and on the other hand Viguese patriots were the archers of the historic event. This double-bridge ship, which had been built in Cartagena by the English system or by Jorge Juan, was launched in 1754 under the name "San José." Once captured in Vigo he became part of the Brigadier Salcedo fleet under the name "Atlante." He was scrapped in 1817.

Manuel Pedro Seoane Cordal
The documentation belongs to the Collection of the Hermeric Association