Spanish gunboat Marques del Duero

Marques del Duero was a first-class gunboat, or "aviso", built by La Seyne in France. She was laid down on 20 January 1875, launched on 3 May 1875, and completed the same year. She was designed to fight against the Carlists in the Mediterranean and the Bay of Biscay during the Third Carlist War, patrolling off Carlist ports to intercept contraband and blockade the ports, and also providing despatch services between Spanish Navy forces operating off various ports, hence her Spanish designation of aviso, meaning "warning." She had an iron hull with a very prominent ram bow, was coal-fired, was rigged as a schooner, and could carry 89 tons of coal. She was reclassified as a third-class gunboat in 1895. ==Operational history==

The Spanish took delivery of Marques del Duero from her French builders at Marseille, France. She set out on her first operational deployment from Marseille on 27 July 1875, heading for San Sebastián Bay in northern Spain for blockade, patrol, and despatch duty. She served there beyond the end of the Third Carlist War on 27 February 1876, finally leaving after Spanish naval forces there began to leave for postwar duties after 5 April 1876. In the resulting Battle of Manila Bay, the first major engagement of the Spanish–American War, Marques del Duero took one , one , and about three other shell hits, which wrecked her bow gun, a side gun, and an engine. Her crew scuttled her in shallow water; part of her upper works remained above water, and a boarding crew from the gunboat went aboard and set these on fire at the end of battle. After the war, a U.S. Navy salvage team raised and repaired Marques del Duero. She served briefly in the U.S. Navy as USS P-17, but was decommissioned and scrapped in 1900. ==Notes==