The War in Texas; A Review of Facts and Circumstances, showing that this contest is a Crusade Against Mexico, set on foot by Slaveholders, Land Speculators, &c. In Order to Re-Establish, Extend, and Perpetuate the System of Slavery and the Slave Trade. Page: 50 of 64
64 p. : ill., map ; 24 cm.View a full description of this book.
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50
THE WAR IN TEXAS.
himself exclusively with the affairs having any connection
with the questions relating to boundaries and
Texas; relieving, by these means, the Charge d'Affairs
already there, from the compromits ofthese questions,
and leaving to his known zeal and efficiency the care
of all the other subjects appertaining to an ordinary
legation. From the appointment of said Envoy, and
his going to Washington, under the circumstances of
the time, two good results at least were about to be
immediately derived, even if no other fruit should be
reaped afterwards: the first, to manifest to the government
of the United States, that Mexico still confided
in its equity and amicable intentions; the second,
to calm, in some degree, the publIc excitement,
by showing the Mexicans that their government still
hoped that the United States would do them justice.
The American packet which arrived at Vera Cruz,
latu January, brought besides, amongst its correspondence,
two official documents which made the Mexican
goveriment conclude in the affirmative with respect
to the measqre in question: one was a memo.
randum of a conference which Sigr. Castillo had had
with the Secretary of State, at the beginning of November,
in Washington; the other was the Message of
President Jackson.
In that conference, Mr. Forsyth had said in the
name of his government, as appeared from the Memorandum
written on that day, by Sigr. Castillo, 'that
the United States were resolved to defend their frontier,
which they considered threatened by reason of
the approaching campaign in Texas; and in order
thereto, the belligerents should acknowledge as
neutral, all that part of the Mexican territory which
might belong to the United States, after the demarcation
of limits should be made.'
And in the Message, in reference no doubt to this
verbal communication, was found the following sentence:
'It has been deemed necessary to make
known to the government of Mexico, that we shall
require the integrity of our territory to be scrupulously
respected by both parties;" without Mr. Castillo's being
able to obtain from Mr. Forsyth the explanation
whichlhe desired in writing of what was really understood
therein by terrtory of the United States.*
Inexpressible, therefore, was the surprise of the
Mexican government, on the reading of both documents,
and on receiving the unforeseen and unexpected
news, that a part of its actual territory, bordering
upon the theatre of war, might some time or other
chance to belong to the United States. This it
deemed a real enigma; because how much soever it
examined the past cprrespondence between the two
governments, since (he foundation of the Republic of
Mexico, not a single word was to be found therein,
which might indicate the existence of any claim of
this kind, unless it was the cited observation of Butler,
of the 21st of December, which was then disregarded
as vague qnd unfounded; and because bow
often soever it read the treaty, and consulted Melish's
map, which forms an integral part of the same, it was
unable to perceive how any doubts could exist with
respect to a territory, separated from the American
territory by a running stream known by all, and un
Because it is really laughable to see what happens in
the United States with respect to the messages of the Presidents,
and what is printed in the Globe. In the former
can be said any thing which oecurs, or may be convenient
to the President, absut foreign governments, without their
having to expect any other explanation than that they
have nothing to do, or any concern with what has been
said therein; because it was a mere domestic allocunon,
of a confidential character, exclusively directed to America,
and only intended for them. The Globe may also
insult or slander them in pet feet safety, and without apprehension
of eomproiting the government, whose organ
it is- and whose eonfidence it poesses; the government
avoiding all responsibility by assuring that it has no official
periodical, and what has been said, remains so.interrupted even for a moment in its course as high
as the 32d degree. What could commissioners or
geometers do in this part of the frontier, that nature
had not done already? Was not the Sabine, which
served as a frontier, the same Sabine which had
always been ?-the Sabine of the treaty of Melish,the
one ascending from the gulf,-navigable, and the
same that thirteen years before the signing of the
Convention of 1819, between Spain and the United
States, the Dearborns and the Wilkinsons already
proclaimed as such Sabine, and as such frontier 7 t
We repeat, that the Mexican government was at a
loss to conjecture what the danger was that threaten.
ed it; but this was exactly what gave it most concern.
It could not know, indeed, whether what the United
States wanted, was to reap any benefit from the present
difficulties in which Mexico found herself, in
order to lop off a portion of her territory, or whether
it was only to make a diversion in favor of the Texans;
or whether they wanted both things at once; but
without knowing exactly what they wanted, it could
not but know that they wanted something, and that
this something was always to be at the expense and
to the great injury of Mexico. There was, therefore,
an absolute necessity to inquire what it was, and this
necessity, as we have already insinuated. at length
decided the appointment of the Envoy, in such a
manner that he hastened his departure for the United
States, embarking at Vera Cruz on the 9th of February,
and arriving in New York on the 27th. 'I'he
instructions given him were, as must be presumed,
numerous and various; but they all tended to the
same end, that of supporting and defending the integrity
of the Mexican territory, whatever might be
the weapon with which it was desired to attack it,
and the fraction of it which it might be intended to
injure.
Scarcely had said Envoy set foot in Washington,
when he was assailed by a thousand alarming reports
about the security of the Mexican frontier, and when
he began to collect successive data in confirmation of
those reports; now, referring to what had been heard
in a certain White House, it was repeated to him
that the Sabine was not the Sabine, and that the real
Sabine was the Neches;' $ now he was assured of
its having been heard from very respectable lips,
that there were in Texas several rivers bearing
the name Sabine; now, he was shown a periodical
of the number of those which were most in the
secrets and interests of the government, and was made
to read therein, 'that between two different branches
of the Sabine lay a wide territory claimed at once
by the United States and' by Mexico, and which the
United States considered as their property, believing
itself, therefore, under the obligation to succour and
protect its inhabitants: now, he was taken to the LIL
brary of Congress and there a manuscript map was
caused to be shown to him, which had been expressly
drawn for the information of the representatives of
the nation, and in which localities and proper names
tWilliam Dirby, the American Geographer, who in
1812? had navigated the Sabinse from the 32d degree to the
.Mexscan gulf, and who was the one thatgfurniibhed Melish
with all the data of this part of the frontier for his map of
1816, corrected afterwalds in 1818, wrote an article communicated,
under dateof May 12th, 1836, in the " National
Intelligencer," which pompletely settles the question as
to the c:,u se and identity of said river. In this artile
besides other things, Darby says: " that if when he visited
that region, any one had disputed there that the Sabi,e
was not the limit between the United. States and the
interior provinces, he would have been taken for a madman."
t
The Neches is a small river of Texas, always called
thus from time immemorial. It ascends frum Lake
Sabine, tnot the Gulf of Mexico,) and on arriving at 30
degrees latitude, divides into a number of branches taking
different directions, though so small that not any one deserves
to be called a river.
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The War in Texas; A Review of Facts and Circumstances, showing that this contest is a Crusade Against Mexico, set on foot by Slaveholders, Land Speculators, &c. In Order to Re-Establish, Extend, and Perpetuate the System of Slavery and the Slave Trade. (Book)
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Lundy, Benjamin, 1789-1839. The War in Texas; A Review of Facts and Circumstances, showing that this contest is a Crusade Against Mexico, set on foot by Slaveholders, Land Speculators, &c. In Order to Re-Establish, Extend, and Perpetuate the System of Slavery and the Slave Trade., book, 1837; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth2414/m1/50/: accessed May 1, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.