attack civilization with the arms which she herself fur- told him that the Chevalier Lasalle had left France to found nishes to it.

Now that we are acquainted with the country, we proceed to consider the formation and development of the population inhabiting it, going back to the foundation of the first Spanish settlements.

a settlement in the Gulf of Mexico. This news, which was true, was immediately communicated to the Viceroy of Mexico, the Marquis de la Laguna. Then, says the historian from whom I borrow the recital of this occurrence, the Viceroy fearing lest this intrepid nation should take root in It is not easy to say, and it is of little importance to these latitudes, to the great injury of New-Spain, wrote know, to whom the honor of the discovery of Texas be- to the Governor of the Havana, to induce him to intrust longs; if however we can give the name of discovery to the the command of a frigate to the celebrated pilot Juan Enrinatural progress, which one day brought the Spaniard-Mexi-quez Barroso, with orders to explore all the shore of the cans of the new kingdom of Leon or of New-Estramadura Gulf of Mexico, and to ascertain whereabout on it the enupon the banks of the San-Antonio, and still further east, croachment of the French was. M. de Lasalle had in fact beside the Sabine. Who is the first European who set his left Rochelle in 1684, to make a French settlement at the foot upon the present territory of Texas? Did the illus-month of the Mississippi; and it was on account of a mistrious and unfortunate Cabeça de Vaca cross it in the al-take in the reckoning, that, instead of executing this project, most miraculous journey, which he made by land, about he advanced along the coast of Texas, one hundred and 1536, from Florida to the northern provinces of Mexico? twenty leagues from the Mississippi, and founded his colony Should we think, on the contrary, that the celebrated and in the Bay of San-Bernardo. In the meantime the Gobrave Lasalle-he who was the first to descend the Missis-vernor of the Havana, conforming to the orders of the Vicesippi to the sea-was also the first who took possession of roy, had sent the pilot, Barroso, to search for the French in Texas, by establishing a fort at the lagune of San-Bernardo, the Gulf of Mexico. He found no traces of them, and at between Velasco and Matagorda? I believe that this is not the close of 1686 he returned to Vera-Cruz to inform the doubtful; and that if the Chevalier Lasalle had been sup- Viceroy of the result of his mission. His report was sent to ported in the colony which he had planted, France would Madrid. Nevertheless, as the rumor of the design of the have occupied and retained Texas by the same title and the French had greatly disturbed the Court of Spain, the new same right by which she possessed Louisiana. It is not Viceroy, Count de Monclova, who arrived shortly after, and less astonishing that the Court of Spain, which had, imme- who had express instructions upon this subject, resolved to diately after the conquest of Mexico, taken possession of search to the bottom, (that is the expression of the Spanish Forida, delayed until the end of the seventeenth century to historian,) if the French had or had not planted any colony secure the command of all the Gulf of Mexico, by an exact in the Gulf of Mexico; and he assembled for that purpose survey of all the coast of Mexico, and by an unbroken chain the captains of the fleet to adopt suitable measures. In of forts, from Tampico, for example, as far as the southern consequence, before even starting for Mexico, he sent from extremity of Florida. It seems that, following the foot- Vera-Cruz two brigantines, charged to survey all the coast steps of the great Cortes, its attention was rather directed as far the Apalachian mountains in Florida. The brigantowards the north-west, in the direction of California and tines were no more successful in their search than the friof the Vermeille Sea-that is to say, towards Asia, China gate of the pilot Barroso; only the remains of French vesand the Philippines. With her design of closing the South sels, which they met with here and there during their exSea to the flags of other European powers, she perhaps ploration, convinced them at once of the reality of the persuaded herself that it would be safer for her to extend project, and the little success which it seemed to have had. berself upon this side than upon the Atlantic Ocean; and In fact, the settlement at the Bay of San Bernardo no she remained faithful to the notion of Christopher Colum-longer existed. Lasalle had been assassinated by the unbus, who spent his life in seeking the East by the West. However it may be as to these suppositions, it is certain that Spain, exhausted by the gigantic labors of the preceding century, impoverished in men, miserably governed, sinking under the weight of its own greatness, had still done nothing in 1680, to hinder the first comer, who had the courage for il, from establishing himself upon the Gulf of Mexico, between Florida and the mouth of the Rio-Bravo del Norte. All the intermediate country was abandoned to the savages, and no person in Mexico suspected the existence of that great river, the Mississippi, whose unknown banks were to undergo in a century and a half the most astonishing and the most rapid transformations.

worthy companions of his enterprise, and those who had followed him were for the most part scattered. But this was not for the Count Monclova a sufficient result of the search which he had prescribed. Always fearful lest the French should come to introduce themselves into Mexico by the north-east, he founded amongst the Indians of the province of Coahuila, who had been lately subdued, the fort or presidio of Monclova, which is now the capital of the State or Province of Coahuila, and which was common to it and Texas. The first colony was composed of one hundred and fifty families, and reckoned two hundred and sixty men able to bear arms against the French.

Nevertheless, it was not without reason that the Viceroy The discovery of the Mississippi by the French of Ca- continued to use his precautions against the bold designs of nada, who, starting from Quebec in 1673, descended this France. In 1688, he learnt, not without astonishment, that river as far as the confluence of the Arkansas;-the subse- three Frenchmen, sent out from Canada, according to all quent labors of Father Hennepin and the Chevalier de La- likelihood, for the new colony of the Gulf of Mexico, had salle, are matters foreign to the subject of these researches. arrived at Santa-Fé, the capital of New-Mexico. The It will be enough then to have briefly called them to mind, Count de Galve, his successor, to whom he had just handed to prove the connection of these facts with the first inquie-over the Viceroyalty, was no less astonished at it than himdes felt by Spain about the preservation of Texas, and self; and they both resolved, in order to know after all consequently with the first measures which she adopted to what to think of it, to send by land, to the place where they maintain her sovereignty therein. I do not perceive in the supposed the French had founded their colony, the Gohistory of Mexico, that the Viceroy of that country or the vernor of Coahuila, with a detachment of soldiers, a geogSpanish Government, learnt quickly enough that Lasalle had rapher, and an interpreter. This time, the search of the descended the Mississippi as far as the sea in 1682, nor Spaniards had a result a little more satisfactory. After consequently that from this time they busied themselves having traversed vast solitudes, the commander of the exwith neutralizing the results of the expedition. But in pedition reached the lagune of San-Bernardo, and there 1094, a commander of a Spanish squadron having captured easily recognized, amid the ruins of an unfinished fort of a French vessel in the sea of the Antilles, the prisoners recent construction, the dead bodies of many Frenchmen,

pierced with arrows, or slain by blows with clubs. They the too celebrated Aaron Burr, enlarging upon the ideas of demanded of the Indians of the neighborhood some account their Government, even conceived upon their own account, of what had happened: they answered that they knew the project of invading and revolutionizing Mexico. This nothing about it, but that some strangers who were still re-time, theory was too far in advance of practice; but eirmaining among them in the neighborhood, would tell them cumstances favored up to a certain point the invading polithe whole story. Some Spaniards, sent to seek them, found cy of the United States. Spain, enfeebled by the war of in fact among the savages five Frenchmen, of whom two independence, incapable of subduing its revolted colonies only decided to follow them, and were sent to Mexico, by force, too blinded by pride to understand the necessity whence the Viceroy had them taken to Spain. According of treating with them, abandoned Florida in 1819 to the to their account, they had been suddenly attacked by the Anglo-American Confederation. The same treaty estab Indians, whilst they were building the fort, whose ruins lished the boundary of Louisiana more to the right of the the Spaniards had seen; overwhelmed by numbers, their Mississippi than the Court of Spain desired, but at least little company had all fallen, except five men, who had confirmed the rights of Spain to almost the whole of the saved their lives by miracle, and the enterprise had had no province of Texas. other consequences.

At this period, the citizens of the United States had not Nevertheless, the Viceroy of Mexico and the Court of yet penetrated beyond the Sabine and the Red River, into a Spain reasonably concluded, from all these circumstances, territory which the colonial legislation of Spain closed to that France had seriously thought of founding some settle- the approach of strangers. It was with difficulty that some ment upon the northern side of the Gulf of Mexico, and bold adventurers, half hunters and half traders, had glided sought for the means of preventing the renewal of such at- amongst the savages, in the midst of whom they lived distempts. A fort, or presidio, was immediately established persed. But in all the Western and Southern States, it was upon the same point where the French had landed in the known how great resources for agriculture Texas present Bay of Saint Bernard. Then they advanced from Coahuila ed; what was the richness of its soil, the beauty of its into the interior of Texas, sending thither, at the same forests, the salubrity of its climate; what facilities for intime, soldiers and missionaries. Pensacola was fortified in land trade, the number of rivers which watered it present1696, and immediately after the peace of Utrecht, the mis- ed, and how advantageously situated for maritime comsious and the presidios of Texas multipled. Often aban- merce the multiplied harbors of the coast would be, if Spain doned, these establishments have always been raised up by would relax a little from its system of exclusion, or if the Spain in the course of the following century, as far down cause of independence should triumph in Mexico. For a as 1764, to check the incursions of the French of Louis- long time the citizens of Louisiana had traversed Texas in iana upon the Mexican territory. But the population there all its breadth to reach the northern provinces of Newwas feeble, and the trade nothing; notwithstanding the Spain. United for forty years under the same government, beauty of the climate, the fertility of the soil, the facility the French of Louisiana and the Spaniards of Mexico, of communication in these vast plains and along these were connected by commercial relations, which outlived the beautiful rivers, were things well known to the Spaniards taking possession of the former by the United States. In of 1730. The author of a manuscript history of the new 1805, Mr. de Humboldt saw at Mexico a certain number of kingdom of Galicia, composed in 1742, regrets that the sa-persons who had taken this long journey, more dangerous lubrity of the country, whose temperature, he says, resem-on account of the incursions of the savages, than dificul bles that of Europe, the evident adaptation of the soil to a in respect to natural obstacles, and, with his usual sagart great number of valuable cultures, the abundance of wood ty he predicted the inevitable consequences of such a ts for building, of game in the plains, and of fish in the rivers, cility of communication. The character of the Anglothe extent of the prairies, which could easily feed immense American race completely justified these anticipations herds, that so many advantages, so rare in the adjoining The government of the United States having renounced, sierras of Mexico, had not attracted an agricultural popula- by the treaty of 1819, its pretensions to Texas, a citizen of tion into the bosom of Texas. It was very nearly the Missouri, Mr. Moses Austin, in the following year, under same in the commencement of this century; already, took to establish in the midst of the Spaniards, a colony of nevertheless, one could foresee under what auspices civi- his countrymen, by peaceable and lawful means, with the lization, industry and labor would be introduced into Texas, permission of the Cabinet of Madrid; and he succeeded in and by what race of men that field would be rendered fruit- it; for he obtained from the Spanish authorities a grest ful, which Spain had disdained to cultivate. It will be extent of country, on condition of leading thither three understood that I am speaking of the United States and of hundred families of industrious settlers, professing the the Anglo-American race. In fact, the consequences of Catholic faith He immediately returned to Missouri, to their vicinity were not slow in developing themselves, and arrange his business, and to adopt all the proper measures the political events of Europe, which have always exer- for fulfilling as speedily as possible the conditions which cised a great influence over the destinies of the new world, had been imposed upon him. But the execution of this could not fail to accelerate the march of a revolution fore- design was reserved for his son. seen from that very time as inevitable. suddenly died, in the midst of his preparations, Mr. Stephen Austin undertook, without hesitation, the direction of the enterprise, and soon had engaged in the States of Louisiana, Missouri and Tennessee, a considerable number of settlers, with whom he removed to Texas. In the meanwhile, the revolution occurred, which separated Mexico forever from the Crown of Spain. Mr. Stephen Austin demanded of the Government of Iturbide the confirmation of the grants made to his father in 1821, and the positive establishment of the Colony was thus realized.

Moses Austin having

After having powerfully contributed to the triumph of the Anglo-Americans, and to the creation of the United States as an independent Republic, the old Government of France, almost frightened at the rapidity of their progress, no longer desired to see them extend beyond the limits of 1783, and congratulated itself that Spain was in possession of all the shore of the Gulf of Mexico. But when the First Consul, wishing to oppose the United States to England, had ceded Louisiana to them, with the systematic design of aggrandizing and strengthening them, the Cabinet This emigration of some families from the western part of Washington must immediately have conceived the idea of the United States to the other side of the Red River. of wresting Florida from enfeebled Spain, and of extending was scarcely noticed at the time when it occurred. An as far as possible westwardly the frontiers of its new ac- event, obscure and destitute of eclat, lost in the midst of quisition. Some adventurous spirits, and amongst others, the revolutions of Mexico, and of the progress of the As

glo-American Confederacy, it made no noise in Europe, | Mountains, and the sandy deserts of their western side. and it is likely that amongst the witnesses, actors and pro- Thus towards the close of 1829, and during the first months moters of the enterprise, very few exactly appreciated its of 1830, the idea of acquiring Texas became very popular tendency. It is the way and the law of all things in this in Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, South-Carolina, Virworld: a beginning unnoticed, a source concealed, often in- ginia, and generally in all the slave-holding States. The accessible, the first steps uncertain, the progress unknown; rumor being then spread that Mr. Poinsett, Minister of the then a great fact which breaks forth, an empire which re- United States to Mexico, was negotiating with the Governveals itself, a nation which boldly takes its place, a revolu- ment of that Republic for the acquisition of Texas, the tion which triumphs over all opposition. As to Texas, the newspapers of Baltimore, of Saint Louis and of Charlesdevelopment has been rapid. The consequences of the ton took up the question, and favored this project with an grant made to Moses Austin were not slow in revealing extraordinary ardor. A series of articles upon this subthemselves. A few years were sufficient to give an irre-ject, published in a Missouri newspaper, and which prosistible power of expansion to that foreign element which duced a lively impression, was attributed to Colonel BenMexico had admitted into her bosom. The population of Texas not being sufficiently numerous for this Province to form a State by itself, the Federal Constitution had joined it to the Province of Coahuila, where the Spanish element exclusively prevailed. The capital of the State in this way happened to be very remote from the first Anglo-American settlements. This was not the only inconvenience of this Union. To encourage the colonization of Texas, Mexican legislation, which proscribed the slave trade, nevertheless allowed the introduction of slaves by land, which prepared, in a future very near at hand, an opposition of social principles in a State whose two halves could not long preserve the same interests. However, the first years passed without collision, and the Government of Mexico did not cease to attract the citizens of the United The universal anticipation which reserved for the PresiStates to Texas and into the neighboring provinces, by dency of Jackson, the acquisition of Texas by the United grants of land, concerning which there was much stock- States, has been upon the point of being realized, and has jobbing at New-York. The colonists themselves were still not been entirely disappointed, at least in this sense, that too few in numbers, too weak, and too much engaged with Texas no longer belongs to Mexico, and that the policy of the physical cares of their settlement, to think of separa- the Cabinet of Washington has prodigiously favored in every ting from Mexico. Thus, in the troubles created at Nacog-way, during the years 1835 and 1836, the revolution which doches, in 1827, by a certain Edwards, they loudly de- has delivered this Province, not to the Confederation, but clared for the lawful authority. But the struggle which to the Anglo-American race. The little time which it reterminated in 1836 by the triumph of the Texans, was from quired to attain so great a result, proves how powerful were that very time on the point of commencing. It was the the political and social motives which, from 1829, impelled ambition of the Cabinet of Washington, favored by the dis- a considerable part of the United States to prosecute the tractions of the Mexican Republic, and stimulated by causes accomplishment of it. They had taken twenty years to peculiar to the Union itself, which gave the signal for it; acquire the mouth of the Mississippi, the possession of for the question was first presented in a shape which it was which, their statesmen, not less than the popular instinct, to preserve a long time-that of the annexation of Texas had, on the morrow of the revolution, judged indispensable to the United States. to their devolopment. Later, when their expansive force is more than doubled, they require but six or seven years to take possession of Texas, in a complete, though indirect way, with their forms of government, their institutions, their manners, their language, their children, their industry and the essential interests of their nationality.

ton, who now sits in the Senate of the United States, where he is signalized by the vehemence of his zeal for the administration of General Jackson. Other articles in the same strain were written under the influence of Governor M'Duffie of South-Carolina. It was besides believed, and with reason, that the new President was personally friendly to the views of the Southern and Western States upon Texas. The defender of Louisiana against the English in 1814, a great proprietor and slave-holder in Tennessee, representing the ideas and interests of the great Valley of the Mississippi, which is of itself an entire world in the American Union, Jackson seemed destined to extend over the ancient domains of Spain the empire of that invading race, of whose passions and irresistible instincts he partook.

It was already eight years since the Anglo-Americans had introduced themselves into Texas, when the United States opened negotiations with the Government of Mexico for the acquisition of this immense territory. The natural resources of the country, the beauty of its climate, the possibility of establishing steamboat navigation on its rivers, were then well known in the whole Union, and particularly in the new States of the West and South. These last had frequent intercourse with the colonists of Texas, who, for the most part, had gone from their midst. Overstocked with slaves, they saw in the acquisition of Texas a means of draining off the overplus of this black population, which daily diminished in value amongst them, and whose labor they could not turn to account in the rate of its increase. Texas, on the contrary, offered to slave labor a field almost boundless, and, so to speak, inexhaustible, not less from its extent than from the kind of cultures to which the rich ness of its virgin plains offered the most complete success. In removing their frontier to the Rio-Bravo-del-Norte, the Caited States would have drawn considerably nearer to *See the correspondence of M. Fafayette with his friends in the great metalliferous districts, and to many provinces of America, passim, prior to the cession of Louisiana to the Mexico, whose population, already old, pretty rich, and United States by the First Consul, and the History of Loudestitute of industry, would have secured a valuable open-isiana, by M. Barbe Marbois.

The report which had spread through the United States in 1829, of negociations entered into with Mexico for the cession of Texas, was well founded. Mr. Poinsett, at present Minister of War at Washington, and then, as we have said, the Representative of his country near the Mexican Republic, hoped perhaps to succeed in this difficult negotiation, thanks to the intimacy of his connections with Zavala, who was the soul of President Guerrero's administration, and with the party of the Yorkinos,† whom the revolution of the month of December 1828 had placed in power. Zavala had just procured for himself immense grants of land in Texas, and to give them some value, he must needs have desired either that this Province should

ing to their commerce. Finally, it would have been one These designations of Yorkinos and Escoceces or Scotch, step further, and a great step, towards the Sea of California relate to Free-Masonry. The partisans of democratic and the Pacific Ocean, so laboriously reached, but much ideas belonged to the lodge or order of York, those of the further towards the north, by the next defiles of the Rocky aristocracy to the Scotch order.

be transferred to the United States, or that colonization by | at the close of this same year. I will quote here an extract the Anglo-Americans should be carried on upon a very from this document, because it throws great light upon the grand scale. Mexico, threatened by a Spanish invasion, moral history of the struggle, maintained for some years bewhich in fact occurred in the course of the year, found her-tween the Spanish race of Mexico and the Anglo-American self, moreover, a prey, as always, to an extreme financial race, for the possession of Texas. distress, and might have been accessible to offers of loan on the part of the Cabinet of Washington upon a mortgage of Texas. "This would suit us, (said Mr. Poinsett then, speaking of the acquisition of this country) and if they were willing to sell it to us, I would take upon myself to buy it." But whatever this active and stirring diplomatist may have promised himself from a concurrence of circumstances so favorable, the event did not answer his expectation.

"The North Americans (says the Mexican Secretary of State) begin by introducing themselves into the country which they covet, under pretence of commercial transac tions or of colonization, with or without the authority of the Government to which it belongs. These colonies increase, multiply, soon become the principal element of the popula tion; and presently, this foundation being laid, the North Americans begin to raise pretensions, which it is impossi ble to admit, which do not bear a serious discussion, and Whilst Mr. Poinsett was examining into its feasibility, which are based, for example, upon bistorical facts disputed the Mexican Republic repulsed the last attempt of Spain by all the world, such as the voyages of Lasalle, whose against its independence. Conceived upon the most pitiful falsity is now known, but which are not the less invoked to scale, and wretchedly conducted, the expedition of Barra- support their pretended rights to Texas. These extravadas had no chance of success. Treason alone could have gant opinions are first presented to the world by unknown caused it to succeed, and Santa-Anna did not play the trai-writers; and the trouble which others take to search for tor. The miserable attempt of the Spaniards miscarried proofs and to establish their arguments, these avoid by them shamefully. The United States were accused of means of bold assertions, which, instead of proving the goodhaving favored it, which seems to me unlikely, and, in the ness of the cause, are only intended to make their feilow. excitement of triumph, all parties declared, at the same citizens comprehend the advantage of success. Their in time, against the ambitious projects of the Cabinet of Wash-trigues in the country which they wish to acquire, are ington. Another circumstance occurred to increase the then manifested by the arrival of explorers, who for the mutual distrusts of the two Governments. The President, most part establish themselves there under pretence that Guerrero, to make head against the dangers of the situation, their residence does not prejudice the question of the right and to animate the patriotic enthusiasm of the Mexican of sovereignty. These pioneers by degrees excite commopeople, had appealed to their sentiments of liberty, to revolutions which disturb the political condition of the territory tionary ideas and passions, which had raised himself to power. in dispute; then come discontents and collisions, calculated Mr. Poinsett was a democrat; he had connected himself in a manner ostensible enough with all the movements of the party of the Yorkinos, opposed to the aristocratic or Scotch faction; but he was not an abolitionist; and when Guerrero, on the occurrence of the anniversary of independence, (September 15, 1829,) proclaimed the abolition of slavery throughout the Republic, this measure displeased him much, and rendered his Government uneasy, on account of the sensation which it could not fail to produce among the black population of the slave-holding States. Guerrero wished to do still more. Mr. Poinsett learnt with alarm that he thought of entering into correspondence with the President of the Republic of Hayti, to excite an insurrection of the slaves of Cuba. The Minister of the United States found himself "And when the United States have succeeded in this then in a very difficult position in Mexico. The Scotch fashion, in introducing their citizens in a majority into the party did not forgive him the revolution of the preceding country which they covet, they generally take advantage, to month of December, which had excluded Gomez Pedraza turn their pretended rights to account, of the moment when from the Presidency. The democratic party, in whose bo- their adversary is plunged into the greatest embarrassments, som great divisions existed, assumed its liberal complexion Such is the policy which they have commenced using ja in earnest, and indirectly threatened the Anglo-American the affair of Texas. Their newspapers have set about disUnion by the rebound of its abolitionary policy. In each cussing the right, which they fancy they have to the sorefaction, the national feeling instinctively revolted against reignty of this Province, as far as the Rio-Bravo-del-Norte. the designs of the Cabinet of Washington upon Texas, and They print, and they distribute on all sides, little pamphlets we may be allowed to believe that English influence was concerning the convenience of this acquisition. There are not unconnected with this universal manifestation of hos-people who proclaim very plainly that Providence itself has tility against the United States. Soon the conqueror of the established the Rio-Bravo as the respective limit of the w Spaniards, Santa-Anna, who was the idol of the day, de- Republics, which has caused the United States to be accused manded the deposition of Zavala, his enemy; of Zavala, who by an English author of wishing to make Providence the died a citizen of Texas: and he at the same time demanded accomplice of their usurpations. But what is very remarka the recall of Mr. Poinsett. Public opinion was still further ble is, that they have commenced this discussion with us, excited against the United States, by the publication of a soon as they saw us busied with repulsing the Spanish Incorrespondence of General Bravo with Mr. Bustamente, invasion, under the persuasion that we could not for a long reference to what they had to fear from their ambition. time attend to any other enemy."

so as to tire the patience of the lawful proprietary and ta diminish the advantages of ownership. When things have reached this point, which is precisely the case with Texas, then the work of diplomacy begins. The uneasiness which they heve excited in the country-the interests of the new colonists-the rebellions which they excite among the adventurers and the savages-the obstinacy with which they maintain their pretensions to the ownership of the territory, become the subject of notes, wherein moderation and justice are respected only in words-until, thanks to events which never fail to occur in the course of such negotiations, & arrangement is concluded as burdensome for one of the two parties as it is advantageous to the other.

The offensive commentaries upon the Mexican character, We see that the Mexican Government perfectly underthreatened, which the newspapers of the South and West of the Union, stood at this period the danger with which it was advocates of the acquisition of Texas, appended to their arti-by the rapid increase of the Anglo-American settlers i cles upon this subject, in the latter months of 1829, could not Texas. Their devouring activity, was already extending fail to exasperate still further; and this general feeling ex- their speculations beyond the boundaries of this Province. ploded in an official manner, so to speak, in a memorial pre-The son of Moses Austin had procured from each of the sented to the Mexican Congress by the Secretary of State States which the Rio-Bravo crosses, the exclusive privilege

of establishing steamboat navigation upon this fine river. In proclaiming the immediate abolition of slavery in the He expected to ascend as far as Chihuahua in his first voy-whole extent of the Mexican Republic, the President, Guerage, and he had no doubt of being one day able to reach rero, certainly violated one of the conditions, in faith of Santa-Fé, the capital of New Mexico. The success of this which the Anglo-American colonists had come to establish gigantic enterprise, would have delivered to Captain Austin themselves in Texas. We may even affirm that this conand his countrymen the commerce of the northern provinces dition had been essential and decisive in their eyes, not of the Mexican confederation; and soon the State of Santa-only because they were for the most part originally come Fé would have suffered a double invasion-that of the in- from slave-holding States, but because that if reduced to habitants of Missouri by the North-East, and that of the free labor they would not be able to give to the execution of colonists of Texas by the South. Alarmed at these ambi- their agricultural labors a development great enough to retions projects, which were made known so boldly in the pay them for their sacrifices and the expense of their enterface of the world, the new government of Mexico, adminis-prise. The Mexican Constitution of 1824, declared, it is tered by Mr. Alaman after the fall of the President Guer-true, that no person thereafter should be born a slave in the rero, resolved to maintain its sovereignty over Texas by territory of the Republic-an arrangement which we find prohibiting all future emigration of the Anglo-Americans. again in the peculiar Constitution of the State of Cohahuila The law passed for this purpose by the Congress, is of and Texas, promulgated in 1827; but it upheld at least the April the 6th, 1830. The course of events will prove that existing slavery, and that would suffice for some years. it was too late, and that they had shut the doors of the The decree of the 15th of September, 1829, on the contrary, place when the enemy had already introduced himself, in would have entirely checked the progress of the colony, if force, within the walls. Besides, it is unlikely that the law it had been executed: it would have ruined the present, and of April the 6th, would have been sufficient to check the ir- prevented all future emigration of the citizens of the United resistible stream of emigration. Nothing is rarer in Spa-States across the Red River and the Sabine, more effecnish America than respect for the law: it has been for a tually than the special decree of the 6th of April, 1830. It long time, in political as in civil rank, the classic land of anarchy. Institutions, elective government, national representation, liberty of the press, justice and tribunals, are nothing but pure fictions in these Republics, where the caprice of a regiment and the ill-humor of a general turn the country upside down once a year at least. It would therefore be very surprising if, from the month of April, 1830, to the revolution of 1836, the Anglo-Americans of Louisiana, Arkansas and the other neighboring States, had regarded No event of any importance signalized the course of the Texas as hallowed ground, and had religiously abstained year 1830; but on both sides, confidence was shaken. In from penetrating therein. On the contrary, I consider it as spite of its weakness, its internal embarrassments, and its settled, that colonization there has continued its course un-state of permanent disorganization, the Government of der the uneasy eye and the feeble oversight of some illpaid garrisons, posted at the two extremities of the Pro

vinee.

was therefore revoked, as far as concerned Texas, by the Government which succeeded that at Guerrero, and upon the representations of Governor Viesca. As to the decree of the 6th of April, 1830, which was, so to speak, the public answer of Mexico to the secret intrigues of the United States, we have said, that, far from receiving a rigorous execution, it was easily eluded by cunning, or even openly violated by force.

of 1832, these forces were distributed in the following manner: At Nacogdoches, 500 men; at San-Antonio de Bejar, 250; at Goliad, 118; at Anahuac, 150; at Galveston, 30; at Velasco, 100; at Fort Teran, 40; at Victoria, 40; at Tenochtitlan, 40;-in all, 1,268. Before ridiculing such an army, we should reflect upon the small number of settlers they were to watch and keep in check, on their dispersion and their military inexperience. It was then, all things considered, a force imposing enough; and if the detachments had been well commanded, if the new civil war which was ready to break out in Mexico had not come to paralize them, the insurrection of Texas could not have been successful so soon. The presence and insubordination of these foreign troops irritated the Texan population deeply. The least pretext would have been enough to make them take arms; and it was not long before it presented itself.

Mexico could not conceal from itself that, in order to preserve Texas, it would soon have a struggle to maintain, either against the United States, or against the Anglo-AmeThe resistance which the avowed designs of the Cabinet rican settlers, and it prepared for it. Small bodies of of Washington concerning Texas met with in the disposi- troops were sent into the country under different pretences tion of the whole of Mexico at the close of 1829, was pro-and occupied the principal posts. At the commencement bably not the only thing which compelled it to postpone the execution of them, and to have recourse to other means of attaining its real object. Besides the uneasiness which was immediately manifested in the midst of the Northern States of the Union, the Mexican Government found also a powerful support in the policy of England, jealous of the growing greatness of the United States. Mr. Huskisson, In the course of a debate on the affairs of Spain and Mexico, denounced to Parliament the intrigues of the Cabinet of Washington, to separate Texas from the Mexican Confederacy. He called to mind how much the acquisition of the Floridas by the United States, had alarmed Great Britain, for the security of her possessions in the West-Indies; then, revealing a project which we may be allowed to believe that English ambition has not yet renounced, he said, that Mexico ought to be maintained in possession of Texas, Face the opposition of the Cabinet of Washington had baffled the negotiations of England with Spain, for obtain- Mexico was then governed by the Federal Constitution ing the cession of Cuba. The United States have not of 1824. Each Province, under the name of a State, posabsorbed Texas, but Texas is now independent of Mexico, sessed its peculiar Legislature, its elective Governor, its and the Anglo-American race bears rule therein. Slavery, budget, &c.; but the Government of Mexico, the General the abolition of which England is pursuing in the whole Congress, and the President of the Republic, were incesworld, be it from interest, or be it from philanthropy, has santly quarrelling with the States about their respective taken deep root in this new Republic, and the English Go- grants and the limits of their powers. In theory, matters vernment is testifying its discontent at it by a singular ob-had been marvellously arranged; in practice, nothing went stinacy in not recognizing her. Was it requisite, according on. The scufflings were continual. The States did not to the system of compensation developed by Mr. Huskisson, that, to console herself for the independence of Texas, Great Britain should cause Cuba to be ceded to her by inligent and impoverished Spain?

VOL. VII-52

pay their contributions to the treasury of the Republic; they formed private confederations among themselves; they drove out the troops of the Supreme Government; they made laws contrary to the General Legislation, and even