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TEXAS STATE LIBRARY
ico, which render it necessary that I should at once inform you that it will be impossible that you should accompany me in the capacity of Secretary. The mission is one of great doubt, and infinite deli- cacy, and any thing calculated to, mar it or in any way.to excite the slightest feeling in l\Iexico ought to be carefully avoided. I shall obtain an interpreter through the English or American Legation, and hence will not wait the arrival of .l\Ir. Amory, for whom I applied. I am respectfully, yours, S'igned. Bernard E. Bee.
No. 1232
1839 Apr. 29, C. C. SEBRI~G TO B, E. BEE, [NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA] 67 l\Ir. Sebring's Reply. Barnard E. Bee, Esq. Orleans Hotel, April 29. Sir- Indisposition has prevented me noticing sooner your note 68 of this morning, in which you announce to me that "facts have come to your knowledge relative to my affairs in Mexico, which render it necessary that you sholl!ld at once inform me• that it will be impos- sible that I should: accompany you as Secretary.'' I thank you, sir, for taking the ·responsability upon yourself of relieving me from this appointment, though I must be permitted to say, that the abrupt manner in which you have thought proper to communicate it, savours little of that "infinite delicacy" so necessary to the happy result of your mission. Let me assure you, sir, that this appointment was altogether ·u:nsolicited by me or my friends; it was the spontaneous offer of the, President, and was accepted by me with reluctance, which was only overcome by a desire to serve him. You have seen proper, in an arbitrary manner, to nullify this appointment, but in doing so you have neither mortified nor disappointed any desire of mine. I had already ·begun to entertain doubts of proceeding further, with- out well knowing how to escape from the responsability of declining at this stage of the mission. Your letter has relieved me from this dilemma. Almost at the moment of my arrival in this city, I find that your private and secret instructions are as public as a news- paper paragraph could make them, and that the ultimatum of the government of Texas is probably already as well known to that of l\Iexico, as to yourself. I cornld not suppose for a moment, that you yourself had made these instructions public, and, therefore, as you will recollect, I apprised you of the fact without delay; and it was in this very room you wrote a note to the person you suspected of divulging them; but whoever was the promulgator, it shows that that "infinite delicacy" you speak of, has not, thus far, been observed. I see no great room, therefore, for "infinite delicacy" in this nego- tiation, as it now stands. The time for that is gone by. I had always supposed, that the great tact of a negotiator, sent on an extraordinary embassy, consisted in keeping his private instructions ""Copy. With no. 1247. ..No. 1231.
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