of your principles, and in accordance with them, the people put
down the serviles of despotism at Anahuac, Velasco, and Nacogdoches.
They treated the captives of that struggle with humanity, and sent
them to Mexico subject to your orders. They regarded you as the friend
of liberty and free institutions; they hailed you as a benefactor of
mankind; your name and your actions were lauded, and the
manifestations you had given in behalf of the nation were themes of
satisfaction and delight to the Texan patriots.

You can well imagine the transition of feeling which ensued on your
accession to power. Your subversion of the Constitution of 1824, your
establishment of centralism, your conquest of Zacatecas, characterized
by every act of violence, cruelty, and rapine, inflicted upon us the
profoundest astonishment. We realized all the uncertainty of men
awakening to reality from the unconsciousness of delirium. In
succession came your orders for the Texans to surrender their private
arms. The mask was thrown aside and the monster of despotism displayed
in all the habiliments of loathsome detestation.

There was presented to Texans the alternative of tamely crouching to
the tyrant's lash, or exalting themselves to the attributes of
freemen. They chose the latter. To chastise them for their presumption
induced your advance upon Texas, with your boasted veteran army,
mustering a force nearly equal to the whole population of this country
at that time. You besieged and took the Alamo: but under what
circumstances? Not those, surely, which should characterize a general
of the nineteenth century. You assailed one hundred and fifty men,
destitute of every supply requisite for the defence of that place. Its
brave defenders, worn by vigilance and duty beyond the power of human
nature to sustain, were at length overwhelmed by a force of nine
thousand men, and the place taken. I ask you, sir, what scenes
followed? Were they such as should characterize an able general, a
magnanimous warrior, and the President of a great nation numbering
eight millions of souls? No. Manliness and generosity would sicken at
the recital of the scenes incident to your success, and humanity
itself would blush to class you among the chivalric spirits of the age
of vandalism.[10] This you have been pleased to class as in the
"succession of your victories;" and I presume you would next include
the massacre at Goliad.

Your triumph there, if such you are pleased