Santa Anna lo defeat of skill or of courage, and to assume with all the confidence of an untried hero, that he could easily effect the conquest of "the bandits of Texas," notwithstanding the misadventures of his predecessor; and thus establish a factitious and transitory fame on the ruins of Santa Anna's boasted invincibility. Such were the views that we entertained of the prospective condition of things in Mexico. We felt that the capture of Santa Anna was an event of vast importance to Texas: that it gave to us advantages or rather the means of acquiring advantages, which years of active warfare might fail to confer. But we knew also that to realise the full benefit of his captivity, some immediate use should be made of him; and that to detain him an idle prisoner of war, was jeopardizing every probability of his being converted lo any beneficial purpose. Santa Anna as a man and an officer, abstracted from his political influence in Mexico, is worth to Texas precisely so much as his rank will command in the matter of exchange of prisoners. He would probably be considered as an equivalent for the surrender of some five or ten officers of the minor grades, should the events of the war throw such into the hands of the enemy. But it may be, he will not evenllially be worth this much; for should his enemies obtain the ascendency in l\'lexico, they would thank the enlightened Texians, for saving themselves the odium of inhumanly destroying their competitor for power. And such verily is likely to be the fact. Let the charm that lately surrounded this potent .Mexican Chief and made him the Soul and the Arm, the Sword and the buckler of Mexico, be once dissolved; let his power at home and the glory of his name depart, and his influence pass into other and hostile hands, and Santa Anna as a prisoner of war, is not worth to Texas his daily rations. The eclat of his captivity may serve to garnish a tale of fiction, but it will confer no substantial benefit on Texas. And the battle of San Jacinto which had been hailed as the certain harbinger of peace and independence, will dwindle away in its political effects into a mere slaughter of a few hundred miserable, unresisting cravens. The executive government thought to convert that glorious event to a more beneficial purpose, and therefore they made an honorable, a liberal and a just treaty with the captive President of Mexico. And they essayed to carry that treaty into effect, but
466
Powered by FlippingBook