e battle of San Jacinto!

FOOTNOTES:

[30] Arnold's third lecture on modern history.

[31] Robinson's Memoirs of the Mexican Revolution, pages 20, 22, 24.

[32] Mexico as it was and as it is, pp. 336, 339. Foote's History of
Texas.

[33] Document No. 40, H. of R. 25th cong. 1st sess. p. 4.

[34] A full account of this campaign will be found in a work entitled
"Primera Campana de Tejas," published in Mexico in August 1837, by Don
Ramon Martinez Caro, who was Santa Anna's military secretary during the
campaign. He treats his former chief with unsparing severity, and very
clearly attributes to him all the ferocious acts of the war. In
Thompson's "Recollections of Mexico," a conversation of the ex-minister
with Santa Anna will be found, in which his exculpation is attempted,
pp. 68, _et seq._

[35] Mr. Webster's letter to Waddy Thompson, 8th July, 1842.

[36] Webster to Thompson _ut antea_.

[37] Letter of Mr. Forsyth to General Hunt, 25th Aug. 1847. Doc. No. 40,
H. of R., 25th congress, 1st session.

[38] Translation of a letter from General Santa Anna, in Mexico as it
was and as it is.--4th edition, page 414.

CHAPTER IV.

Origin of the war continued--Proposed annexation of Texas to the United
States by treaty--Efforts of several administrations to recover
Texas after the Florida treaty--President Tyler's objects--Mexican
opinions--British intrigue--British views relative to Texas--Defeat
of the treaty in the senate--French opinions.

There is no doubt that although the government of the United States was
anxious to preserve a strict neutrality between the belligerents in
1837, and, thus, to avoid assuming the war with Mexico by annexing an
insurgent State, it, nevertheless, refused the proffered union with
regret. From the earliest period, our statesmen contended that, by the
Louisiana treaty, we acquired a title to Texas extending to the Rio
Grande, and that we unwisely relinquished our title to Spain by the
treaty of 1819 which substituted the Sabine for the Rio Grande as our
western boundary.[39] But, divested as we were by solemn compact with
Spain, of what may have been our territory under the treaty with France,
it was idle to regard Texas as a proper subject for restoration to the
Union whilst active hostilities were waged by Mexico. Nevertheless, such
was the evident value of the province, and such the anxiety to regain
our ancient limits that before the outbreak of the