Aberdeen advised the Admiralty to give the necessary authority to purchase guns.

When Texas protested he at first seemed to think strict neutrality was secured if the same privileges were offered that country.
Later he prohibited naval officers to go in command.

One Mexican vessel, the _Guadaloupe_, left England with full equipment as originally planned; the other, the _Montezuma_, was forced to strip her equipment.
But both vessels sailed under British naval officers for these were permitted to resign their commissions.

They were later reinstated.

In all this there was in part a temporary British policy to aid Mexico, but it is also clear that British governmental opinion was much in confusion as to neutral duty in the case of such ships.