circumslances of great distress. Their stock was left to run wild, or to be ~onsumed b~ the enemies, or stolen by ruffians more dcstruct!vc and abominable than the common foe. Their plantations were gomg to waste and the planted crops bid fair to succumb to the rank luxuriance of weeds. In short, the country was verging to general dessolation, and the prevailing desire of the people, was for peace and permission to return to their homes, or to such of them as had escaped the ravages of war. The.uncxpected victory, threw a bright scintillation of hope over the mmds of men. Fugitive families staid their flight, and the planters of the Brazos and the Colorado, who had borne the principal burden of the war, and sustained most of its disasters, turned their thoughts to the gathering of a harvest which had been planted in hope but abandoned in dispair. A peace was regarded as the happiest consequence to flow from the great battle. But how was that peace to be obtained? The puissant Santa Anna, the "Dictator" of Mexico, was a prisoner. He whom all considered as the author and the executioner of that nefarious decree, which denounced the citizens of Texas as rebels, and the volunteers of Texas as pirates, and is alleged by the homicides, as a legal sanction for the massacres of Goliad: he whom all regarded as the master spirit of the Mexican armies, and the primary cause of the war, was a captive in Texas. To attempt a negociation with the decapitated government of Mexico, would have betrayed an egregious ignorance of that government and might have cost the lives of some valuable commissioners. To have solicited the amicable mediation of the United States, as was proposed, discussed and abandoned, would have consumed more time, than the peculiar emergency would allow, and would have endangered the ability of Santa Anna, to procure the final ratification of his compact. The rapidity of revolutionary movements in Mexico forbid such delay. It was therefore resolved, after mature and anxious deliberation, to expedite the best hope of a permanent peace, by permitting the captive President of Mexico to return to his country, and if so be, to re-assume the reins of that government, whose forces l!e had recently led against us. The experiment was somewhat novel; 1t may have been hazardous. But the risks, we believed were greatly in our favor. If it succeeded, Texas was, defaclo el de jure independent. If it failed, Santa Anna was again our enemy, and again he might marshall his forces for Texas. This is the whole matter and comprises both horns of the dilemma. Every citizen can form some estimate of the benefits that would have resulted to Texas and to himself, from a peace with Mexico
497
Powered by FlippingBook