will be remembered, that in the second campaign we were taken by surprise, and our enemy had gained pos- session of the most important port for securing facili- ties to their operations, before our little navy was organized for efficient service, or an army was on the field of sufficient force to authorize a stand against the numbers with which we had to contend. When the :Mexicans left the country the last time, all the po1·ts were left in our possession; and uutil they ret.ake them, they will be under the necessity of bringing all the supplies for the subsistence of 1111 army by land, three hundred miles at least, o,·cr a country so desti- tute of water, as to subject them to at least seventy miles travel in an entire want of this refreshing article. In their first campaigns, they subsisted prin- cipally upon Texian beef, their profligate consump- tion of which has rendered it scarce.-And who does not know the difficulties of bringing l\Icxican soldiers, a second time, into Texas? Another argument is derived from the well known state of parties in Mexico. Should that, which for the time being has the ascendant, employ enough of its military force in the reduction of Texas, to make success at all probable, so great an abstraction from the military resources indispensable to the most pop- ular leader in that country, would unavoidably deter-
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