(3967) [JACKSON to KENDALL)
Hermitage, August 12, 1836. The view you have taken of our affairs with Mexico
and Texas is certainly a Just view, and one which you find I have adopted. I have determined to maintain a strict neutrality, and have, as you will have seen in the public Journals before this reaches you, disapproved of the requisition of Genl Gains, and ordered the men assembled and organized by · Governor Cannon and the Governors of Ky. Mississippi and Louisiana to be mustered and discharged. You will discover that the basis on which Genl Gains made the requisition was the movement of the Mexican Troops into Texas, which basis was a violation of that nutrality which we had assumed, and was in fact, and which Mexico might have viewed an act of war upon her if it had been carried into effect, and I have no doubt was intended by Gains to get troops there who would have at once went over to the Texan army; but I have stopped it in the bud. And you will find there has been no possible movement by the Indians, and that the whole has been projected in New Orleans; however, a full investigation, in due time, wiU be had. Genl Gains would do any act to injure and implicate the administration. Your fears about taking possession of Nacogdoches wiU vanish when the true cause for this movement is made known. This movement was ordered by the Government, and made known by the Secretary of State to the Mexican Minister, Mr Gorostisa, and acquiesced in by him. We contend, from the words and spirit of the treaty, that all the navigable waters of the Sabine belong and was intended to belong to the United States by the contTacting parties, and as I am advised wiU be able to shew from the ancient map of Spain that the western branch that faUs into the Sabine lake and makes the Sabine river and bay, was known by the name of the Sabine at the time Louisiana was ceded, and if the northern branch is taken as the Sabine, a large portion of our citizens ceded with Louisiana would be retroceded by the treaty with Spain. We have been anxious to run this line for a long time, [but] Mexico has not been ready to join us; Texas has resolved herself independent of Mexico, and we have now to contend with Texas as well as Mexico with regard to our limits. Texas would claim the bounclery as claimed by Mexico, and was about to take possession and claim it by right of that possession. We take possession and will hold it with a perfect understanding when the line is run and established if our possession is west of the established boundary, we withdraw our
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