d. He did not yield until those deeply
interested in obtaining Florida had, by their urgency, persuaded him to
treat on the condition of not including Texas. Although desirous, from
general considerations of national interest and policy, to obtain that
province, it was well known that he would not engage in any conspiracy
to wrest it from Mexico. His character and firmness in that respect
lessened his popularity in the Southern States, and excited an
inordinate zeal for Jackson.

Accordingly, Mr. Poinsett, of South Carolina, minister of the United
States in Mexico, immediately after the inauguration of President
Jackson, in 1829, being apprized of his views and policy, took measures
to carry them into effect. Under pretence of negotiating for the
purchase of Texas, he remained in Mexico, and so mingled with the
parties which at the time distracted that republic as to become
obnoxious to its government. The Legislature passed a vote to expel
him from their territories, and issued a remonstrance intimating
apprehensions of his assassination if he continued there; charging him
expressly with being concerned in establishing "some of those secret
societies which will figure in the history of the misfortunes of
Mexico." It might have been expected that a foreign minister would
have repelled such an accusation with indignation. Poinsett, on the
contrary, in a letter[1] addressed to the public, admitted that he
had been instrumental in establishing _five_ such secret societies,
but asserted that they were only lodges of Freemasons,--merely
philanthropic institutions, which had nothing to do with politics.
For the truth of these assertions he appealed to his own personal
character, and to the character of the members of the secret societies,
who, he declared, had been his intimate friends for more than three
years, vouching himself for their patriotism and private virtues. Even
this authentication did not create implicit belief in the minds of
those to whom it was addressed.

[1] See this letter in _Niles' Weekly Register_, vol. XXXVII.,
pp. 91-93.

During these proceedings of Poinsett in Mexico the newspapers in the
United States announced that the American government were taking proper
steps for the acquisition of Texas. Intimations were also circulated of
the sum Poinsett had been authorized to offer for it; and, to make sure
of its ultimate attainment, in the summer and autumn of 1829 emigrants
from the Unite