those, so obvious and so well known, which are clearly laid clown in the first paragraph of the President's celebraled message of March 8, 1822. Mr. Monroe there, is speaking of the Spanish provinces which had seceded from the mother country, says that "the United States had acknowledged the rights to which they were entitled by the law of nations, and as belligerants, so soon as their movement had assumed such a steady and consistent form as to renrler their ultimate success probable, and, from that period, they had been permitted to enter with their vessels of war and trading vessels into the ports of these United States, for the purpose of obtaining provisions, of trading," &c. Thence, it may be natmally inferred, in the opinion of the undersigned, that, until such movement had acquired such a steady and consistent form as lo render probable (not merely possible) the ultimate success of the said provinces in their struggle against Spain, the United States neither acknowledged their possession of any rights as beligerants, nor admitted their vessels in the American ports. There was, consequently, a great interval between the commencement of the movement and the period at which il could have acquired the steadiness and consistency deemed requisite lo warrant the opinion that its termination would probably be favorable; and the neutrality which may have been, and indeed really was, observed by the United Stales during the whole of that interval was, and could only have been, a mere neutrality of expectancy, for the purpose of seeing whether those provinces did, or did not, possess the means of emancipating themselves. Now, even admitting the case of Texas to be similar to those of the republics which were formerly colonies of Spain in this part of the globe, can it be said that the Texan movement has yet arrived at the point which those of the Spanish Americans had attained, when the United States allowed them the same rights? It would be ridiculous to assert this. The undersigned will not waste time in enumerating the various resources of population, riches, and the elements of society possessed by the Spanish Americans, and certainly not possessed by the Texans; he will merely remind the Secretary of State, in corroboration of his previous assertion, that the pretended independence of Texas dates only from the beginning of last March. In that month, the first campaign of Texas began, and during the whole of that month, as well as the greater part of April, the Texans were beaten wherever they
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