defence of the country, to be slandered when he has no personal means of defending himself, and when absent fighting the battles of the countrys, his only resource is the public press, and I am sure this much your high sense of justice will afford. Very respectfully your ob.'t serv .'t, Thos. J. Green Brigadier General, Texas Army. (3895] {JACKSON to CANNON] Hermitage, August 6, 1836. Sir: I have received your letters of the 29th ult. and the 4th instant, accompanied by the copies of communications which were addressed to you on the 4th of May and 25th of July by the secretary of war, and also accompanied by your proclamation of the 20th, founded on the requisition made by General Gaines, ·bearing date the 28th of June last. The documents referred to in the communication to you of the 25th ult. from the War Department, have not get been received. The obligations of our treaty with Mexico, as well as the general principles which govern our intercourse with foreign powers, require us to maintain a strict neutrality in the contest which now agitates a part of that republic. So long as Mexico fulfils her duties to us as they are defined by the treaty, and violates none of the rights which are secured by it to our citizens, any act on the part of the government of the United States which would tend to foster a spirit of resistance to her government and laws-, whatever may be their character or form, when administered within her own limits and jurisdiction, would be unauthorized and highly improper. A scrupulous sense of these obligations has prevented me thus far from doing any thing which can authorize the suspicion that our government is unmindful of them, and I hope to be equally cautious and circumspect in aU my future conduct. It is in reference to these obligations that the requisition of General Gaines in the present instance must be considered; and unless there is a stronger necessity for it, should not be sanctioned. Should this necessity not be manifest, when it is well known that the disposition to befriend the Texians is a common feeling with the citizens of the United States, it is obvious that that requisition may furnish a reason to Mexico for supposing that the government of the United States may be induced by inadequate causes to overstep the lines of the neutrality which it professes to maintain.
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