(31761 [JACK Lu PltESI DENT aml CABINET]
Office of Secy of State Velasco 27th ~lay 1836
To His Excellency the President and cabinet of the Govt ad interim of the Republic of Texas Gentlemen The appointment made this morning of Mcs.srs Zavala and Hardiman as commissioners to accompany Genl Santa Anna to Mexico for the purpose of negotiating a treaty with that government involves a question of policy so doubtful and dangerous that silence on my part would probably be highly culpable. Do not understand me as having any objecting lo the gentlemen named. On the contrary I have the fullest confidence in both; and if I had the whole continent from which lo select a minister for such a purpose, my eye would naturally turn to Mr. Zavala. But il appears that these gentlemen are lo accompany Genl. Santa Anna. Hence this prisoner is to be released under the desparate hope that he will do us more service in Mexico, than his person is worth to us here. Until the evening of the 26th instant, I had not the most distant idea, that the cabinet had determined upon such course of policy. Had this been intimated lo me a few days sooner, 1 should not have accepted the office, which I now have the honor to hold, because, I should have foreseen, that it would certainly bring me in direct collision, with men whose honesty cannot be doubted, whose devoted patriotism cannot be questioned, and whose political opinions are entitled to such high respect and even veneration that a difference of opinion upon such an important and leading question, must necessarily be a source of the keenest regret. I am not opposed to the mission itself. There is nothing which my heart so earnestly and ardently desires, as a recognition of our independence by Mexico, and the consequent establishment of a peace upon terms just and honorable to both parties. But Gentlemen I am opposed lo the release of Santa Anna on any terms. Inasmuch as this riucslion was definitively settled before I had the honor to hccomc a member of the cabinet, and as the
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