81
PAPERS OF MIRABEAU BuoNAPARTE LAMAR
of armistice, which carries with it the syrian song of peace, peace, and for the sake of effect would have it understood aR a prelude to our in- dependence This will be found out to be a total mistake; such a thing is not dreamed of by Santana, and our hero is well aware of it Santana is as fond of power as he is, and should he dismember the Mexican Republic (as they please to term it) by acknowledging the independence of either Texas, or Yucatan, that power, of which he is so fond and proud, would be immolated forever. There never has beeu a time, since our dastardly hero bartered off our independence at San- jacinto (when we had it fairly within our grasp) that we have had an_v right to expect that ignorant supercilious horde to grant to us a matter of right, a boon, to them only known in name, whose divine and salutary influences never has, nor never can, be felt in the benighted and priest ridden Country called Mexico Like other indians they can only be brought to a sense 0f their duty to others, by feeling th; miseries of war in their own Country And until the whole Nation, or at least a large majority of it be brought to consent; no tyrant, however absolute his power, dare venture even to su/!gest it: as it would at once produce his own destruction These are facts of whicli I am well satisfied; and no man has a better right to know them than his Excellency. He did not want our independence at Sanjacinto, he does not want it now, nor would he accept of it, without his sine-qua-non, his indian territory, and only then as a last alternative, as it would close the door to his further cupidity The judge of epis- tolary memory, the willing prisoner, the mutual agent between the heroes, tells us, that he had long private interviews with Santana and returns with his ultimatum; and that he will then entertain commis- sioners to treat respecting the terms His Excellency was too cunning to urge this matter on the people himself, permitted this mutual agmt to cause the wind whilst he would deal in enigmas; stick a feather in his tail and see how the wind blew? The twenty five cents for cotton, and the various wrappers which guilded the pill; put _some few to nibling at the bate, and, some 'tis said, got fairly hooked in the mouth, but by a sudden back-out, seems to have relieved themselves; but whether they did not imbibe some of the poisons will require time to prove. His Excellency finding the people tardy to urge the matter, did not deem it prudent to moot it himself, and-sought it through the interposition of the ~nglish Government. Indirectly tickling that Government on her favorite hobby, the abolition of slavery The Eng- lish Government has produced no more than Santana proposed through his agent, only that the people are hoaxed by its coming under a more specious guise England has shewed the motives which influenced her action, and her sine-qua-non of abolition is well understood This she would have expected had Mexico acknowledged our independence, .~nd this she would have prefered As she is well aware that should our adhesion to Mexico be affected, that revolutionary Mexico, would afford no guarantee to the ultimate success of the project. Our h~ro was well apprised that Santana would not acknowledge our independence, be- cause they perfectly underi;:tood each other And hence the English Government was disappointed and the only alternative left is our ad- hesion to Mexico, which is virtually the same thing; though :;he w<>uld much have prefered the other. The great inducement which our hero
Powered by FlippingBook