cargo or two of provisions, and since it would have been almost impossible, in the face of the French blockade, to have landed the supplies at some Mexican port, they were shipped to Corpus Christi, where they were met by a sufficient company of Mexicans from Matamoros and thereabouts with pack horses and mules to take them into northern Mexico by land.[31]  By the time the Texans reached Corpus Christi, the Mexicans had gone, part of them returning to Matamoros in a light craft loaded with flour and other supplies.[32]  A few days later the captain of the American schooner Lodi was at Aransas, awaiting the arrival of his vessel from Corpus Christi. From Aransas he intended to proceed to New Orleans for additional supplies of various kinds for the Mexican trade. Flour and all imported articles were described as selling at exorbitant prices in Matamoros.[33] 

It was believed that the readiness with which the Texans had acted to defend the integrity of the national territory would be of good effect in showing the enemy that they would not lie supinely and suffer the country to be plundered or its territory used as a means of evading the French blockade. It would, at the same time, give the French no cause for complaint, and might incline that government to accord its recognition of Texan independence.

In the meantime, news of the Mexican incursion reached President Houston at Nacogdoches, and it was his determination that the enemy operating in the vicinity of Corpus Christi needed to be chastised and expelled. Accordingly, he authorized Colonel George W. Hockley, Secretary of War, to take the necessary steps to expel the enemy from within the boundary of Texas.[34]  He suggested Lieutenant Colonel Lysander Wells or Colonel Henry W. Karnes, successor to Colonel Juan N. Seguin as commandant at San Antonio when the latter took leave to go to New Orleans late in 1837,[35]  as the best qualified to lead the force to be dispatched to the lower Nueces. The exact size of that