scrupulous and faithful guardians of national honor, while they respected the Mexican right of reconquest. Their natural sympathies were of course yielded to Texas, but their executive duties, the faith of treaties, and the sanctions of international law forbade their acceding to the proposed union. Texas, accordingly, established a national government, elected her officers, regulated her trade, formed her army and navy, maintained her frontier secure from assault, and was recognized as, de facto, an independent sovereignty by the United States, England, France and Belgium. But these efforts of the infant republic did not end in mere preparations for a separate political existence and future commercial wealth. The rich soil of the lowlands along the numerous rivers that veined the whole region soon attracted large accessions of immigrants, and the trade of Texas began to assume significance in the markets of the world.
Meanwhile Mexico busied herself, at home, in revolutions, or in gathering funds and creating armies, destined, as the authorities professed, to reconquer the lost province. Yet all these military and financial efforts were never rendered available in the field, and, in reality, no adequate force ever marched towards the frontier. The men and money raised through the services and contributions of credulous citizens were actually designed to figure in the domestic drama of political power in the capital. No hostilities, of any significance, occurred between the revolutionists and the Mexicans after 1836, for we cannot regard the Texan expedition to Santa Fé, or the Mexican assault upon the town of Mier as belligerant acts deserving consideration as grave efforts made to assert or secure national rights.
Such was the condition of things from 1836 until 1844, during the whole of which period Texas exhibited to the world a far better aspect of well regulated sovereignty than Mexico herself. On the 12th of April of that year, more than seven years after Texas had established her