By 1767, when a royal commission visited Laredo, 185 people lived there. The commission arranged for the survey of a formal townsite, inaugurated a government, and assigned land grants to families who had settled in the area. The commission also extended the jurisdiction of the town north to the Nueces River so that it eventually included all of the area of present Webb County as well as parts of modern La Salle, Dimmit, and Zapata counties. Between 1836 and 1848 the area that is now Webb County was part of the disputed strip of land between the Rio Grande and the Nueces River claimed by both Mexico and Texas. Though Laredo was briefly designated capital of the short-lived Republic of the Rio Grande during a federalist rebellion led by Antonio Canales, residents remained primarily loyal to the Republic of Mexico. Laredo was captured in 1846 and held for the duration of the war. Meanwhile, even before the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo assigned the Nueces Strip to Texas, legislators in Austin included it in the new jurisdiction of Nueces County in 1846; in January 1848 the Texas legislature established Webb County, which was named in honor of Judge James Webb. Despite the hopes of prominent Laredo citizens, who petitioned to remain part of Mexico, the area was formally incorporated into the United States in May 1848. Worried about their future after annexation, many residents moved to the Mexican side of the river and established Nuevo Laredo; others moved into the surrounding Texas countryside. In 1848 Laredo became the county seat for newly established Webb County, which was named after James Webb, a friend of Mirabeau Lamar's.-Handbook of Texas Online: Webb County