was required to distribute a proclamation prepared for him at Washingtoii. In this strange document, the General is made to tell the Mexicans, " Your Goveniment is in the hands of tyrants and usurpers. They have abolished your State Govern- ments ; they have overthrown your Federal Constitution ; they have deprived you of the right of suffi'age, destroyed the liberty of the press, despoiled you of your arms, and reduced you to a state of absolute dependence upon the power of a military dictator. We come to obtain indem- nity for the past, and security for the future. We come to overthroiv the tyrants ivho have destroyed your liberties, but we come to make no 2var iqjon the peo2')le of Mexico, nor upon any form of free Government they may choose for themselves. It is our wish to see you liberated from despots, to drive back the savage Camanches, to prevent the renewal of their assaults, and to compel them to restore to you from captivity your long-lost wices and children .^"
Not satisfied with forcing General Taylor to distribute this mendacious proclamation as his own act, he was expressly instructed (9th July, 1846), to pursue a course of deceit and fraud. He was directed by the Secretary of Wai', "to take occasions to send officers to the head -quarters of the enemy for the military purposes real or ostcjisible * Commodore Conner announcing to the Secretary of the Navy the arrival of Santa Anna at Vera Cruz, added: "I hare allowed him to enter Y\'ithout molestation."
17' which are of ordinary occurrence between armies, and in which opportunity may be taken to speak of the war itself as only carried on to obtain justice, and that we had much rather procure that by negotiation than by fighting." Here, we may observe, is an awkward admission, that the war is not a defensive but an aggressive one.
Again : '' A discreet officer who understands Spanish, and who can be employed in the intercourse so usual between armies, can be your confidential agent on such occasions, and can mask his real' under his