Dent To Enforce Them.

But the reader is as yet only partially acquainted with the extreme wickedness of this proposal. He is yet to learn that only six months before the date of this message, the President had himself acknowledged that Mexico was guiltless of the conduct he now imputed to her. We must again advert to the letter of the 5th August, 1836, already quoted in the preceding chapter. This was a sort of semi-official, semi-confidential epistle, written, not at Washington, but at the President's residence in Tennessee, and addressed to the Governor of that State. Governor Cannon was, doubtless, no less anxious than his friend, for the annexation of Texas, even at the cost, if necessary, of a war with Mexico. General Jackson seems to have written the letter, to excuse himself for countermanding Gaines's order for troops, and for not facilitating annexation, by making war on Mexico. On the first point he tells the Governor " there is no information to justify the apprehension of hostihties to any serious extent, from the western Indians." But was not the frontier endangered by the Mexicans ? Was not Mexico virtually Avaging war upon us ? Listen to the solemn assertions made by the President's ambassador Ellis, in his letter to the Mexican Secretary of State, on the 2Gth September, only a few weeks after the communication made to Governor Can- non :—" The flag of the United States has been repeatedly insulted, and fired upon by the public armed vessels of this Government ; her consuls, in almost every port of the Re- public, have been maltreated and insulted by the public au- thorities ; her citizens, while in the pursuit of a lawful trade, have been murdered on the high seas, by a licentious and unrestrained soldiery. Others have been arrested and scourged in the streets by the military^ like malefactors they have been seized and imprisoned under the most frivolous pretexts—their property has been condemned and confiscated in violation of existmg treaties, and the acknowledged laws of nations, and large sums of monev have been exacted of thera, contrary to all law." Noav, in such a state of things, how did General Jackson excuse himself to his friend, foi* not vindicating the rights of his country ? Very easily. All the grievances we