Nueces, a few miles above Lipantitlán and less than forty-five miles from Corpus Christi, thus indicating that only the lower Río Grande region was to be included. Lamar had just recently acquired a league of land fronting on Copano Bay,[3]  which was now expected to become a scene of considerable business activity and from which he, Samuel A. Plummer, and others hoped to profit. After presenting his passport to the commanding officer at Casa Blanca on the Nueces, the trader would then be free to proceed to either San Antonio or Goliad to dispose of his goods or items of trade and to make such purchases as he desired. Since, however, there was no military post then at Casa Blanca, the traders would, in the interim until one could be established, be permitted to proceed directly to either San Antonio de Béxar or Goliad, where, upon presentation of their passports to the highest military or civil authority, they would receive permits to trade. The trade was to be "free of duties or exactions of any kind" so long as similar exemptions were accorded to the citizens of Texas carrying goods into northern Mexico to trade. As for those who might enter without passports and "with horses or cattle for sale," declared the President, "such horses or cattle shall be taken by . . . [the] authorities and retain[ed] until information of their capture can be communicated to the Mexican authorities aforesaid near the Río Grande."

As a means of furthering the cause of trade and navigation generally, the Secretary of Navy was directed by Congress to have surveys made, as soon as possible, of the bars and entrances to Galveston, Velasco, Paso de Cavallo, Aransas, and the Sabine, and to mark each with "a good and sufficient buoy or buoys, in such manner that the channels