before the general government of Texas. If you maintain your post as mere lookers-on; if you do not abandon the city and retire into the interior of Texas, that its army may protect you, you will, without fail, be treated as real enemies, and will suffer accordingly."[16] 

On July 11 it was rumored at New Orleans that 4,000 Mexican troops were embarked at Vera Cruz and another 4,000 at Matamoros for Texas, and that these were to be supported by 4,000 troops to enter Texas by land; but, declared Thomas Toby, "as it is like many others got up by the opposition, there is no ground for it."[17]  Toby's appraisal of the summer invasion prospects were confirmed by reports from Tampico in mid-July that the troops at Matamoros under General Urrea were in such a state of wretchedness that they could not advance in a new campaign against Texas before the elapse of two or three months.[18]  Near the middle of August, Peter Suzeman reached Columbia from Matamoros, which place he left on July 12, to report numerous desertions from Urrea's force and to say that many of the Mexican troops were openly avowing that they would never again enter Texas.[19] 

In the meantime, the Mexican authorities at Matamoros were reported endeavoring to engage 8,000 Indians to join them against Texas. Late in June fourteen or fifteen chiefs including six or seven representing themselves and other tribes from Texas held conferences at Matamoros with General Urrea and Colonel Ugartechea relative to joining the Mexicans against the Texans. A correspondent of the New Orleans Commercial Bulletin reported from Matamoros on July 1, that "every movement appears to confirm the belief that the negociation is concluded, with a promise to the Indians of land and cattle, should they assist and succeed in exterminating the population of Texas."[20] 

Back in Tennessee at the end of May, Richard G. Dunlap had called the attention of the Texan Secretary of State Samuel P. Carson, then in Nashville, to plans to muster out of service between June 10 and June 22 the Tennessee volunteers that had been enrolled under Gen-