shining merits on this occasion, I bore ocular testimony during the five days' action. I have also lo contribute my praise to Major Bennett, quartermaster-general, for the diligence and success with which he supplied both armies during the siege and storm. These despatches with a list of killed and wounded will be handed to your Excellency by my first aid-de-camp, Colonel Wm. T. Austin, who was present as a volunteer, during the five days' storm, and whose conduct on this and every other occasion, merits my warmest praise. To-morrow I leave the garrison and town under command of Colonel Johnson, with a sufficient number of men and officers to sustain the same, in case of attack, until assisted from the colonies; so that your Excellency may consider our conquest as sufficiently secured against every attempt of the enemy. The rest of the army will retire to their homes. I have the honor to be, Your Excellency's obedient servant, Edward Burleson, Commander in Chief of the Volunteer Army. (14 73 I [GUERRA to SMITH] Headquarters, Matamoras, December 14, 1835. I had delayed a reply to your note of the 7th instant, in which you request me to declare the cause of the arrest of the captain and crew of the American schooner Hannah Elizabeth. I have been waiting for a translation, which has been made; and, in reply, I deem it proper to say to you that the above-named vessel was encountered by the armed schooner General Bravo upon the coast of Texas, loaded with arms and warlike munitions, and, as I am informed by the commander of the Bravo, fled from the above-mentioned national vessel the 19th, and ran upon a bank a short distance from the bar of Matagorda; and being hoarded by a boat with twenty men and two officers, she was found to be loaded with contraband, and armed with three cannons, besides some cases of arms, which were thrown overboard in order that they might not fall into the hands of the insurgents in arms against
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