USA > Texas > The history of the republic of Texas, from the discovery of the country to the present time; and the cause of her separation from the republic of Mexico > Part 14
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" 17. The agents of the republic having first notified such to the minister plenipotentiary at the British court, shall proceed to form an exact account, supported by vouchers, of all and every the expenses occasioned by the issuing of the new bonds for the conversion of the foreign debt, which shall be duly transmitted to the minister of finance.
" 18. Immediately upon concluding the payment of the first dividend of the interest on this new consolidated debt, whether such payment be made in London, or by the issue of certi- ficates as herein before described, the agents for the republic shall proceed, in conformity to the 15th article of the Agreement, to collect the original bonds now deposited in the Bank of Eng- land, and in the presence of his Excellency the Mexican minister to cancel and render the same unfit for circulation, by cutting out from the centre of each bond a piece of half an inch diameter, and this same operation shall be performed on all bonds which may hereafter be presented for conversion. Both his Excellency the minister and the agents shall give due notice and account to the minister of finance of the bonds thus cancelled, describing from whom received, amount, dates, &c., and all these said docu- ments shall afterwards be placed in a safe deposit, as may be agreed upon by his Excellency the minister to her Britannic Majesty, together with the agents for the republic, so that at any time these documents, when needed, can be forthcoming to prove the legality of the conversion.
175
MEXICAN PRESIDENT'S ORDER IN COUNCIL.
" 19. The issue of new bonds shall be limited to the precise sum required to satisfy the amount of the old bonds, with arrears, &c., which shall be presented for conversion, so that there shall never be issued one new bond except to replace an old one ; which latter is to be directly cancelled, and deposited in a place of safety, as provided for by the preceding article.
"20. In compliance with what is enacted in the 7th article of the before recited act, and for the due fulfilment of what is stipu- lated in the preceding Agreement with respect to the deferred bonds, it is declared hereby that the acre mentioned in the Agree- ment contains 4810 English yards, and is equivalent to Mexican measure.
" 21. To the end that the accounts of the foreign debt be kept at the general treasury with necessary care and accuracy, so as to correspond with the debt as now established by this present conversion, there shall be opened the proper accounts in the great book, under the different heads of capitals and interests, so that at any time the situation and amount of the foreign debt may be easily seen in all its parts.
" 22. Whatever operations may be entered into either within or without the republic relating to this debt, must appear in the books of the treasury; therein must be entered also whatever amounts are received or paid, whether such sums be in cash or in any description of national securities.
" 23. For the better carrying into effect the instructions con- tained in the preceding article, the agents of the republic, entrusted with the management of these affairs, shall remit by every English packet a general account made up to the day of remission, and of this copies shall be sent by the government to the treasury, for the needful entries to be made. Such public officers in the republic who may effect any operation connected with the foreign debt can only do so by virtue of a treasury warrant, and they must give due notice, upon the same being completed, to the treasury.
* There is a blank in the original.
176
TERRITORY CLAIMED BY THE TEXANS.
" 24. At the end of every year the treasury shall make out a general statement of the foreign debt, arranged to the 31st of December, and this shall form part of the general statement of the public credits and liabilities which the government submits every year to congress.
" And I communicate this to you by order of his Excellency the president, for your information and government.
" Mexico, 29th July, 1839. " God and Liberty. " ECHEVERRIA.
" To Messrs. F. de Lizardi and Co."
From the foregoing documents may be gleaned the precise interests and rights of British subjects in Texas, when Lord Palmerston recognized the de facto independence of that country : but even that act of gross injustice towards his own countrymen is not unparalleled ; for the territory of which the Texans claim the sovereignty under the right of conquest, - notwithstanding that three-fourths of that territory remain an unexplored wilderness, into which the Texans are forbidden to penetrate by its unsubdued, unconquerable, and lawful owners, the native Indians,-includes a large portion of the states of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, Chihuahua, and the territory of Santa Fe, or New Mexico, in ad- dition to Texas-Proper, under the Spanish regime, as shown on the map : but the territory claimed by these people is under an act of the Teran Congress, (and not the right of conquest, as they falsely assert,) passed in the session of 1836, and which defines the boundaries of Texas thus :-
" The boundary of the republic of Texas is as
177
TERRITORY CLAIMED BY THE TEXANS.
follows, beginning at the mouth of the Rio del Norte, about 26 north latitude, and up that river to its source ; thence a due north course to the source of the river Arkansas, the boundary-line of the United States, following that river in all its meanderings to about the 99th degree of longitude from London ; then a line due south to the Red River, following the course of the Red River to a line due north from the junction of the Sabine River, with the 32nd parallel of latitude, and about the 91th degree of longitude; then taking the course of the Sabine River to its termination in the Gulf of Mexico."
Thus this boundary embraces that portion of the Mexican states I have mentioned, which lies east of the Rio del Norte; hence, then, the injustice to the unoffending Mexicans of those states. But our modern geographers are not satisfied with this wholesale plunder, as defined by the Texan con- gress, and recognized by Lord Palmerston; they needs must leave a sally-port in the north-western corner, which may be seen in Mr. Arrowsmith's map, as published in Mr. Kennedy's work, through which the Texans, " in the constancy of the Anglo- American spirit," are to reach the shores of the Pacific !
But surely Messrs. Arrowsmith and Kennedy must be aware that the physical features of the country, that lies between the north-western boundaries of Texas as correctly defined in the map which accompanies this work, present in-
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178
MEXICAN AND UNITED STATES BOUNDARY.
numerable and indeed insurmountable obstacles to the influx of emigrants from Texas or the United States to California and the shores of the Pacific. While the hostile Indian tribes on the frontier, and the dense population in the interior of Mexico, at once render the ingress and egress of the Texans to the Californias from the western frontier of Texas, so totally impossible, it is almost too absurd to allude to such visionary projects, except to illus- trate the folly which is constantly brought before the public by authors, who collect matter to form their works in other countries, which is the course Mr. Kennedy says he pursued, instead of writing from personal observation, and the latter he could not have done, as he was not more than six weeks in Texas. The boundary line between the United States and Texas has also been commented on by Mr. Kennedy at great length, in which he would lead the world to believe that the former has had an indisputable title to the soil of Texas since the cession of Louisiana to the United States by France, up to the time the states recognized the independence of Texas, notwithstanding that the boundaries between Mexico and the states were unalterably defined by Onis's treaty of 1829, which has long been the law of nations on that subject ; thus we find the boundary in question defined in the third article of Onis's treaty of 1829 :
" ARTICLE 3. The boundary line between the two countries west of the Mississippi, shall commence from the Gulfof Mexico,
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MEXICAN AND UNITED STATES BOUNDARY. 179
at the place where the river Sabine empties itself into the sea ; and it shall continue northward by the west bank of this river, until it reaches the 32nd degree of latitude, from which point it shall continue in a straight line due north, until it strikes the red river of Natchitoches, and then it shall proceed eastward up the course of that river as far as the 100th degree of longitude west from London and 23 degrees from Washington, at which point it shall cross that river, and continue by a straight line due north on the same degree of longitude to the river Arkansas, the south bank of which it shall follow up to its source in the 42nd degree of north latitude, and from this point a straight line shall be drawn following the same parallel of latitude to the Pacific Ocean. All according to the map of the United States, pub- lished in Philadelphia, by Mellish, and perfected in 1818. But should it be found that the source of the Arkansas river is either to the north or the south of the said 42 degrees of latitude, the line shall continue from the source of that river due north or due south, as the case may be, until it reaches the said 12 degrees of latitude, and then shall follow that parallel to the Pacific Ocean. All the islands of the Sabine river, red river of Natchitoches, and Arkansas river in the whole of the course described, shall belong to the United States ; but the use of the waters and navigation of the Sabine to the sea, and of the before-mentioned red river and Arkansas river, along the whole course of their respective banks, comprehended within their limits here specified, shall be common to the inhabitants of both countries."
Then follows a clause by which Spain for ever renounces all right, &c. to territories to the east and north of the said line ; and the United States in like manner renounces for ever all rights, claims, and. pretensions, to all territories situated to the west and south of the said line. But whilst every effort was and is being made to disturb the established order
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180
GEN. HAMILTON'S LETTER TO LORD PALMERSTON.
of things-while the creation of a new country, and the dismemberment of an old and friendly nation were going on, not a voice was raised in the Bri- tish parliament on this important subject, except that of Mr. O'Connell, who unfortunately took a wrong view of the Texan question in the first in- stance, and when advised as to the right course, did not think proper to follow it .* However, he urged the propriety of the treaty between Texas and England being brought before the house; but this Lord Palmerston evaded, and not a particle of in- formation upon this vital subject could be obtained in any quarter until the month of May, 1841, when the following official communication from General Hamilton was published, to lull the natural suspi- cions and apprehensions of those who were most deeply interested in the Texan question, namely the British creditors of Mexico :
" MY LORD,
"London, November 5, 1840.
" As our communications in relation to the proposed medi- ation of Her Majesty's government, in procuring a pacification between Texas and Mexico, and the assumption by the former of a portion of the public debt of the latter, have hitherto been entirely verbal, I beg leave to transmit you this despatch, that the reasons and motives, which may influence the republic of Texas in making this assumption, may not be liable to any farther misconstruction. In the first place, I must enter a pro- testando against the inference that Texas is BOUND in any degree for any portion of the said debt on any principle of international law, or by any one obligation of private justice.
* Vide Letter to Mr. O'Connell in Appendix.
GEN. HAMILTON'S LETTER TO LORD PALMERSTON. 181
" Mexico violated the charters she had granted to Austin's colonists, on the faith of which the Anglo-Americans had emi- grated to Texas, and recovered its territory from the savage tribes, with whom Mexico was incapable of coping. These violations were accompanied by atrocities, which rather belonged to the dark ages than the day in which we live.
"Texas consummated her independence in 1836. In 1837, after Mexico had lost all possession of and sovereignty over Texas, she concluded a convention in London with the Mexican bond- holders, and assigned certain portions of her public lands in several of her provinces or departments. She was guilty of the absurd mockery of including in this convention those situated in the department of Texas, where she had neither a man nor a foot of land over which she exercised jurisdiction east of the Rio Grande.
" I need not insist, I am sure, with your Jordship, on the absolute nullity of this convention, as far as Texas is concerned. But what I desire to do is to do voluntarily, as a concession to the benevolence and philanthropy of her Majesty's government, which have induced you to come forward and offer its inter- vention in producing a pacification between the two countries, honourable to both.
" If, therefore, Mexico will consent to a truce with Texas within thirty days after the communication of any convention, we may conclude on the subject by her Majesty's ministers at her capital, and in six months after will conclude a treaty of amity and commerce with Texas, which shall provide for a satisfactory and well-defined boundary between the two countries, I shall be quite willing to come under a stipulation that Texas shall assume one million sterling of the public debt of Mexico, con- tracted by Mexico prior to the year 1835, which is precisely the sum the United States offered for the whole country in 1830. The valne it has acquired since has been conferred on it by the enterprise, heroism, and intelligence of the citizens of Texas themselves, and is a just and honourable acquisition of their own.
" This I desire to be regarded as a voluntary concession ; for
182 CONVENTION BETWEEN ENGLAND AND TEXAS.
"I conceive Texas no more bound to assume a portion of the public debt of Mexico, than the thirteen American colonies, after they achieved their independence, were bound to assume a share of the national debt of Great Britain. Your lordship, however, in our conferences, has never pressed this as a matter of right, although I have not failed to recognise the zealous attention and regard you have paid to the interests of a class of her Majesty's subjects, who have long suffered under the bad faith of Mexico, and whom, under a just equivalent to the citizens of Texas, I shall be gratified if they shall be instrumental in indemnifying.
" In conclusion, I have the honour to remain, with distin- guished consideration and regard,
" Your Lordship's obedient Servant,
"J. HAMILTON." " The Right Hon. Lord Viscount Palmerston."
This letter (which is quite Texan in the way of contradiction,) is dated the 5th November, 1840, eight days before the treaty was signed between England and Texas,* and Lord Palmerston accepted this letter as the basis of the subjoined convention which was signed the day after the treaty.
" CONVENTION.
" Whereas her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, being desirous of putting an end to the hostilities which still continue to be carried on between Mexico and Texas, has offered her mediation to the contending parties, with a view to bring about a pacification between them ;
* The treaty between England and Texas was published in the United States' papers in June, 1841 : the copy given in the Supplement is taken from an American paper.
CONVENTION BETWEEN ENGLAND AND TEXAS. 183
and whereas the republic of Texas has accepted the mediation so offered : the republic of Texas and her Britannic Majesty's government have determined to settle, by means of convention, certain arrangements which will become necessary in the event of such pacification being effected ; and have for this purpose named as their plenipotentiaries, that is to say, the republic of Texas, General James Hamilton, &c., &c. ; and her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom, the Right Honourable Henry John Viscount Palmerston, Baron Temple, a peer of Ireland, a member of parliament, Knight of the Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, and her Britannic Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs ; who, after having communicated to each other their respective full powers, found in good order and due form, have agreed upon and concluded the following articles :---
" Art. 1. The republic of Texas agrees that if by the mediation of her Britannic Majesty an unlimited truce shall be established between Mexico and Texas within thirty days after this conven- tion shall have been communicated to the Mexican government by her Britannic Majesty's mission at Mexico ; and if within six months after that communication shall have been made, Mexico shall have concluded a treaty of peace with Texas, then, and in such case, the republic of Texas will take upon itself a portion, amounting to one million pounds sterling, of the capital of the foreign debt contracted by the republic of Mexico before the 1st of January, 1835.
" Art. 2. The manner in which the capital of one million pounds sterling of foreign debt, mentioned in the preceding article, shall be transferred from the republic of Mexico to the republic of Texas, shall be settled hereafter by a special agreement between the republic of Texas and the republic of Mexico, under mediation of her Britannic Majesty.
" Art. 3. The present convention shall be ratified, and the ratifications shall be exchanged at London as soon as possible within the space of nine months from this date.
184
GEN. HAMILTON'S PROTESTANDO.
" In witness whereof, the respective plenipotentiaries have signed, and have affixed thereunto the seals of their arms. Done at London the 14th day of November, in the year of our Lord, 1840.
(Signed) " PALMERSTON. " HAMILTON."
General Hamilton, whilst absolutely craving the mediation of her Britannic Majesty on behalf of Texas with the mother country, for the suspension of hostilities, on the issue of which depends the independence of the republic of Texas, enters his "protestando " against the inference that Texas is bound in any degree for any portion of the foreign debt of Mexico, on any principle of international law : but the gallant Texan envoy must have for- gotten that the debt contracted by Mexico with British subjects was for the express purpose of promoting the internal improvement of the Mexican states, and that the loan raised by Mexico in Lon- don was so applied by the Mexicans, and that a due portion fell to the lot of Texas. In order, however, to substantiate his " protestando" he states, " I conceive Texas no more bound to assume a portion of the public debt of Mexico, than the thirteen American colonies, after they had achieved their independence, were bound to assume a share of the national debt of Great Britain." Here it is necessary to remind the enlightened plenipotentiary that England had no foreign debt at the time to
185
GEN. HAMILTON'S PROTESTANDO.
which he alludes ; and if she had, as is the case with Mexico, he may be sure that the foreign creditors of England would have applied to, and, in case of refusal, compelled the thirteen American colonies to assume a part of the foreign debt of the mother country.
There are a few other assertions contained in General Hamilton's despatch, that are worthy of a passing notice. He says, " Texas consummated her independence in 1836." If so, where was the necessity of his soliciting, in 1840, the mediation of the Queen of the United Kingdom with Mexico ? And if the latter, as Gen. Hamilton has stated, lost " in 1837, all possession of, and all sovereignty over Texas," why call in a third power ? Is it simply for the satisfaction of making a voluntary concession of £1,000,000 sterling to the benevolence and phi- lanthropy of the British government? If Texas achieved her independence honourably and nobly, and was so prepared to maintain it, would she now offer to pay " precisely the sum the United States offered for the whole country in 1830," when she can console herself with the assertion put forth by the Texan envoy in his " protestando ?" Cer- tainly not.
When speaking of the violations of certain con- tracts between Mexico and the Texans, that " were accompanied by atrocities which rather belonged to the dark ages than the era in which we live," his Excellency, as a matter of course, alludes to the
186
TEXAN ATROCITIES.
following, which are historically recorded by several American writers :-
The massacre, by the first Anglo-American settlers in Texas, of the Carancauha Indians, amounting to 350 families, men, women, and children, say 600 souls, . 600 The massacre of a poor Indian woman, who was shot, and " had both knees broken for stealing a handful of corn from a crib." -- (Texas in 1810.) . 1 .
· The poor wounded Indian, who was asked by a gallant Texan officer, " where he would be shot, opened his bosom, and pointed to the centre of his breast, which was immediately pierced by a ball, and a rope being tied to his legs, the body was dragged some distance, and finally hung upon a tree, where it remained until eaten up piece- meal by the wolves and vultures."-(Texas in 1840.) . The unprovoked massacre of Salcedo's officers by the Texans, at San Antonio, amounting to ·
1
The assassination of General Long by his Texan soldiers 1
Ditto Thompson, a planter on the Brazos in 1828
1
The assassination of
Foster, a planter on the Brazos
in 1828 1 The assassination of Judge Fisher, Matagorder, 1839 1
The massacre of 14 Indian chiefs and two women at San Antonio, April, 1840; they having entered that settlement
for the purpose of concluding treaties with the Texans . 16 The deliberate assassination of Vance and three of his associ- ates on the Houston race-course in April, 1810, in the pre- sence of two or three thousand persons .
The duel between a Colonel of the Texan army and a subaltern officer at Austin, May, 1840, in which both were mortally wounded 2 655
27
1S7
TEXAN AND MEXICAN CIVILIZATION.
It must have been these 655 bloody deeds to which the worthy envoy alludes in his despatch, and not to the one provoked, but nevertheless un- justifiable, reprisal made by the Mexicans when they put Fanning and his armed and rebellious as- sociates to death ; or to the murder of two English- men, Mr. Ward and -, by the Indians, at the city of Austin, in March, 1840. These are indeed grave atrocities, but they do not, when duly consi- dered, equal the enormities which history has already recorded against the Texans. The Texan prides him- self on his Anglo-American blood, boasts of his hu- manity, his moral and political perfection, and finally of his high state of civilization; therefore there is nothing that can be urged to extennate his crimes. Whereas the Mexicans are described by some mo- dern authorities, as proud, idle, revengeful, priest- ridden, and in fact a half civilized race only, whom, however, the history of civilized nations will in some measure excuse, in the case of Fanning and his men, by merely recording the usage common among civilized nations in all cases of rebellion ; and as for the poor, oppressed, and benighted Indians, who are still far beyond the pale of civi- lization, and who have never heard the command- ment of their God, " Thou shalt do no murder," and yet are being robbed and murdered daily by the very Christians whose duty, and whose study it ought to be, to teach and protect them ; surely the acts ascribed to these poor creatures cannot be said to be their own crimes.
188
REPRISALS OF FOREIGN NATIONS.
But even admitting for a moment that all these Texan atrocities that I have brought forward from historical records, could be justly inscribed on the escutcheons of the Mexican nation, yet we find them paralleled in the history of Europe, aye, even down to the very era in which we live. Take, for example, Spain and Portugal, where reprisals have been made, not once, but repeatedly, and British subjects shot in cold blood under the very guns of their own country ! And yet these countries are not expunged from the map of Europe, nor British interests in either overlooked. Is Mexico, then, to be erased from the map of the new world for one reprisal ? a country which is to England, in the west, what Turkey is in the east ; while the United States, in the Gulf of Mexico, is to the several powers on the continent of America, what Russia, in the Black Sea, is to the powers of Europe ! Are then the restless, acquisitive, and ungovernable Anglo-Americans to be suffered (under any pre- text) by the British government to overrun Mexico and to extend their territorial boundary to the shores of the Pacific? If so, it is time for the Mexicans, and the British merchants, and the credi- tors of Mexico to unite to a man, and call on the South American republics, one and all, to resist the first and unjustifiable inroad (on the Mexican terri- tory), of their rapacious, mortal, and acquisitive enemies, the Anglo-Americans of the United States. General Hamilton, who, about two years ago,
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