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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 unjustifiable, reprisal made by the Mexicans when they put Fanning and his armed and rebellious associates to death; or to the murder of two Englishmen, 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 considered, equal the enormities which history has already recorded against the Texans. The Texan prides himself on his Anglo-American blood, boasts of his humanity, his moral and political perfection, and finally of his high state of civilization; therefore there is nothing that can be urged to extenuate his crimes. Whereas the Mexicans are described by some modern authorities, as proud, idle, revengeful, priestridden, 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 civilization, and who have never heard the commandment 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.

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 pretext) 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 creditors 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 territory), of their rapacious, mortal, and acquisitive enemies, the Anglo-Americans of the United States.

General Hamilton, who, about two years ago,

was a slave-holding citizen of the United States, must, as such, be aware that the boundary between the United States and the Mexican province of Texas, has long since been satisfactorily defined and recognized by the law of nations. For surely he cannot allude in his despatch to the boundary of Texas as independent, while he acknowledges the existence of hostilities between the Texans and the parent state, or be allowed to throw off allegiance to his country, and appear at the court of St. James's as a citizen of Texas, so created for the express purpose of disturbing the boundaries of Mexico. Lord Palmerston must, doubtless, have seen the drift of the Texan envoy, which is simply to break up the existing order of things, that he may open a door to his acquisitive countrymen that shall eventually lead them to the possession of the treasures of Mexico, as well as those of the Pacific. However, the convention between England and Texas, of which General Hamilton's despatch was accepted by Lord Palmerston as the basis, is simply a recognition by the British government of hostilities pending (at the very moment the treaty was signed) between Mexico and her rebellious colonists in Texas; and as it is generally reported that Lord Palmerston's Texan treaty has not yet been ratified by the British government, this convention cannot be looked upon as a recognition of the independence of the republic of Texas by Great Britain, a subject which is not to be handled without the most profound

consideration, replete as the colonial history of England is with the injuries and dangers that accrue to a mother country from the interferences of a foreign power in disputes between a parent state and her colonies. Where, it may be asked, are these injuries and dangers more distinctly exhibited than in the colonial history of England? But while we repudiate such unjustifiable interferences, stigmatize them as unpardonable, and are the first to seek the fullest atonement, let it not be said that England has prematurely and unjustly interfered in this case, which is immediately connected with one of a similar nature, that has placed the life of a British subject in imminent peril, and may therefore be appropriately cited as a case in point. On the contrary, now that the period so peremptorily defined by the Texan envoy for the ratification of a treaty of amity and commerce between Mexico and Texas, has expired without the ratification of such a treaty taking place, her Majesty's government should accept the refusal of Mexico to surrender her sovereignty to the Texan territory, as a strict confirmation of the existence of hostilities between the two countries, and should endeavour to obtain from Gen. Hamilton some information as to the course the Texans intend to pursue, remembering that the interests of that "class of her Majesty's subjects who have long suffered under the bad faith of Mexico," have suffered most from protracted civil wars, in which the Anglo-Americans and Texans

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have taken an active part, in direct violation of every private contract and international law. The sentiments of the Mexican nation on the subject of the recognition of the independence of Texas may be gleaned, moreover, from the following extract from the protest of the Mexican Chargé d'Affaires, addressed to Lord Palmerston, and subsequently approved by the Mexican government :—

"The government of Mexico ratifies the protest of the Chargé d'Affaires (Mexican) to Lord Palmerston, adding that the acknowledgment of a faction of adventurers as an independent nation is contrary to the principles which Lord Palmerston, conjointly with the four powers, has maintained in Europe in the Turco-Egyptian question, in which no adventurer, but an illustrious prince, a native born in the country, endeavoured to withdraw himself from the sovereignty of the Grand Seignor of Constantinople. That the conduct of Lord Palmerston was a breach of the harmony and good faith, which was considered also by the Spanish-American States to be a characteristic of the British government, so that it was impossible to conceive that, in the face of existing treaties of alliance and friendship between Great Britain and Mexico, by which the integrity of the Mexican territory is acknowledged, how should be recognized as a sovereign people, not a fraction of the same territory and its primitive inhabitants, but a handful of adventurers, who in the sight of all the world have entered upon the Mexican territory, bringing slaves with them to re-establish slavery in a country in which by law slavery was abolished. That in the treaty

between Lord Palmerston and the agent of Texas there is no provision for the abolition of slavery; a condition which the English government has exacted from all the Spanish-American governments in the treaties celebrated with them. That the territory of Texas is mortgaged for the foreign debt of Mexico, and to

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