to sail, during her detention. The next day Gard left the detention of Itata in the hands of his sole deputy and was out in the harbor searching for the Robert and Minnie, which had been reported sighted the previous day in nearby Mexican waters. At 5:30 pm on May 7 Itata raised anchor and illegally left San Diego, and carrying the deputy marshal, who was put ashore by the crew the same evening at Ballast Point. The shipment of 5000 rifles was transhipped from the schooner off one of the southern Californian islands to Itata, which then sailed for Chile. US national newspapers subsequently reported a claim by Marshal Gard that the ship was loaded with Chilean soldiers. Iquique The United States navy dispatched several ships, under two admirals, to chase the Itata, which press reports claimed was expected to meet and supply the Chilean warship Esmeralda with arms and munitions. But both the Esmeralda and the Charleston, a US warship sent out after the Itata from San Francisco, reached the Mexican harbor at Acapulco by May 16, neither having intercepted the Itata. The Charleston left Acapulco to join with other US ships, including the San Francisco and the Baltimore, and an international contingent including warships of the Royal Navy and the Imperial German Kaiserliche Marine to await the Itata at the Chilean harbor of Iquique. There, on June 4, U.S. Navy Rear Admirals W.P. McCann and George Brown convinced the Chilean Congressional rebels to give up the Itata and its cargo of around 5,000 rifles. The armaments were badly needed, and one month later the Congressionalists received another arms shipment from the vessel Maipo with a load of German-made Krupp arms and munitions. Return to US After its surrender, the Itata was brought back to San Diego with its crew. The Harrison Administration appointed William Howard Taft, the US Solicitor General (and later U.S. president), and Los Angeles-based federal prosecutor Henry Gage (later Governor of California), to investigate the Itata and prosecute its crew and suppliers. Following his investigation, Gage declined to prosecute the crew, stating his belief that the federal government had made an error regarding the matter. He also stated that he believed that the arms shipment constituted private property, and was outside of the federal government's direct jurisdiction. Taft prosecuted the cases against the arms and against the ship, but the US government lost in