power: and it was executed at the taking of the Alamo, and on the unfortunate companions of Fanning, and on many others, with a treachery and horrid cruelty almost exceeding belief; furnishing evidence, true as it is melancholy, that the Mexican is still a savage, and unfit to govern civilized men. This the colonists had been for a time taught, and it is well we have learned that the Mexican is treacherous and cruel. He is our next neighbor upon our great Indian and slave border; and it need not be concealed here, because it is not concealed in the Congress of the United States, that his vicinity to the valley of the Mississippi is, on all accounts, to be deprecated. Thus situated, the people of Texas had the alternative presented, either to abandon the country, or to defend it. It was their home, and they chose the latter. But to do this, organization, a government, was necessary. A convention was, without dissent, determined upon, as the proper tribunal to take into consideration the condition of the country. By previous concert, the mode of election and number of members was determined. The election took place, and the convention met on the first day of March last. The Government of Mexico had decreed, by a solemn law, that those who had taken up arms in Texas were traitors, and subject to be shot. This judgment of death included all but the women and children. Of the mode and extent of its execution, the convention had had awful warning; and they look the only step left to their choice; they declared Texas a sovereign, independent Republic, published a formal declaration of independence, honestly and truly setting forth not only the propriety, but the absolute necessity of the act. They next proceeded to adopt a constitution and form of Government, pursuing that of the United States, with slight exceptions: and the constitution provides for the administration of the Government until the elections to fill the Legislature, and the offices, shall lake place during this summer. The necessary officers, in the mean time, were appointed by the convention, who are now administering the Government with more regularity, and with fairer prospects of its perpetuation, than did the authorities of these United Stales, for the first five years after our declaration of independence; or, than did a majority of the States from July, 1776, up to the capture of Cornwallis at York. Long before that event, our independence had been recognised by France and Holland. And were the Republic of the United States to refuse to recognise Texas as independent of Texas, we would but loo justly deserve the vindictive imputation so constantly cast upon us by the
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