(2639] (GAINES to GOVERNORS]
Head Quarters, Western Department, Natchitoches, Louisiana, April 8, 1836. Sir: The war in Texas, which has of late assumed a sanguinary and savage aspect, has induced the President of the United States to require a considerable augmentation of the regular force lo be concentrated upon this section of the national frontier, to which my attention has been particularly directed. He deems it to be the duty of the United States to remain entirely neutral, and to cause their neutrality to be respected, peaceably if practicable; forcibly if necessary. The thirty-third article of the treaty with Mexico requires both the contracting parties to prevent, "by force, all hostilities and incursions on the part of the Indian nations living within their respective boundaries, so that the United States of America will not suffer their Indians to attack the citizens of the Mexican States," &c. The provision of this article I am particularly instructed to cause to he enforced; and I have, pursuant to instructions, taken measures to make known to the various Indian tribes inhabiting that part of the United States bordering on the Mexican territory, on the waters of the Red and Arkansas rivers, the determination of the Government to prevent any hostile incursions into Texas; and have directed that the chiefs be called upon to inculcate upon their people the necessity of carefully abstaining from any violation of the above mentioned engagements; and I have moreover informed them, pursuant to the orders of the President, that I will not hesitate to use the force al my disposal for the purpose of preventing such designs. I have learned from several of our citizens entitled to credit, that one Manuel Flores, a Mexican Spaniard, but for some years past a citizen of "Spanish town," in this State, near the Sabine ridge, has been lately commissioned by persons professing to act by the authority of the Mexican Government, for the purpose of enticing the Indians in the western prairies, on our side of the boundary line, to join them in the war of extermination now raging in Texas; and that, with this view, the agent, l\fanuel Flores, accompanied by a stranger, has lately passed up the valley of the Red river, and has already produced excitement among the
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