| Summary: | ...the purpose of this book is really two-fold. First and foremost, our purpose is to locate the Invincible. But after that goal is accomplished, it is hoped that this information about the Invincible will assist the Texas Navy Association and others in telling the story of the Pirateers and the First Texas Navy and ultimately the entire ten year history of the Texas Navies. The Invincible played an important role in the early chapters of that history and finding her will surely help in telling the real history of the Republic of Texas- a rich and colorful maritime and naval history that somehow has been largely forgotten and never given its rightful place in Texas history. Future generations of Texans should not be a ignorant as I was when Clive received his commission. Texans should know the important role the Texas Navies played in shaping the histories of Texas, Mexico and the United States.This story of the invincible as a continuation of our goal to provide information, both historical and archaeological, about eh neglected history of the naval prowess of the Republic of Texas. We got off to a good start with the Zavala (See Appendix D), and when we complete our Invincible search we will then continue to locate and document other ships of these glorious fleets.I that you read Chapter I first because it contains all the primary historical documents I could locate about the Invincible over a fourteen (14) year period. When Trevanion Byrd began researching for me his first task was to arrange the documents in chronological order. IN time, we added to the collection and with our repeated reviewing of the documents came to conclusions of Chapter II and III. If you time is limited skip to Chapter III in which Trevanion Byrd lays out our case for the location of the Invincible. Thereafter, you'll want to review Chapter IV, which contains the charts that visualize the summary of our argument.After these past seventeen (17) years of high expectations and repeated disappointments I am now cautiously confident of our ultimate success. After all, we have eliminated a very large search area and we now have adequate research to show the approximate location of the Invincible. Additionally, and most importantly, we are close to having the ultimate shipwreck search tool, an aerial survey. With Fugro Airborne Survey's aerial map of magnetic anomalies we will be able to prioritize our targets, greatly reduce our test excavation time, and hopefully identify the site of Invincible in 2003.
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