134 enclosed. Your Excellency says that repeated representations have been made to this your Department by all the most influ- ential and respectable residents of the Rio Grande Valley, of their desperate situation, and the insecurity of life and property in that section of the State occasioned by the total inadequacy of the present military establishment in Texas to check the mur- ders and depredations of lawless bands of Indians and Mexicans; and that in consequence of these representations you had felt it your duty to take immediate steps for the relief of the lower Rio Grande and with that view had called into the service of the State three companies of mounted volunteers (numbering in all, about 200 men, rank and file) for the period of six months, who are to act in concert with the U.S. troops stationed in that quar- ter. Your Excellency conclud~s by requesting that "the general government will recognize the services of these volunteer troops, and make such further and more permanent dispositions as upon examination shall be found necessary to restore that peace and security to which that this unfortunate country has so long been a stranger." You enclose various communications made to you by citizens of Texas on this subject. Your Excellency is probably aware that the Executive had repeatedly informed Congress that the military establishment of the country was inadequate to the protection of its widely ex- tended frontier and recommended that it be authorized to raise additional force for that purpose. Congress has seen fit to dis- regard these recommendations at a time when the necessity for their adoption was more apparent that it is at present. Before the last adjournment of Congress, it was well known that there was reason to apprehend an extensive outbreak of the Indians on the frontiers of Texas, and the very facts communicated in your Excellency's letter must have been known to the Senators and Representatives of your State, in Congress. Nevertheless that body adjourned without taking any steps on this subject. Within a few weeks past, the Department has been informed by the reports of its officers, not only that the rumors that the Indians were preparing extensive hostilities, were unfounded, but that in fact (with a few partial exceptions) they have not been for a long time as peaceably disposed. All accounts concur in rep- 1·esenting the Comanches as unusually quiet, and by advices re- ceived from Col. Sumner it appears that treaties of peace have been concluded with the Navajoes and Apaches (the two most powerful nations on the confines of New Mexico and Texas);- that there are now treaties of peace with all the Indians in New
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