day reported him on the Medina with 150 men in the utmost disorder,[14]  and another party of Federalists under Jesús Cárdenas as having crossed lower down, on the route to Goliad. Apprehensive that Canales might be followed by General Arista or Ampudia as far as San Antonio for the purpose of robbing Béxar, Live Oak Point, Lamar, Goliad, and other small towns in the extreme west, Fisher dispatched a message to Canales, "informing him of the terms upon which he would be allowed to remain in Texas."

The acting head of the Mexican legation in Washington leaked information on March 26 that his government "was secretly organizing an army for the invasion of Texas, and spoke of the conquest with much confidence."[15]  His purpose in leaking this information was probably to strengthen the antiannexationists in the United States and to harass the Texans with the thought of an invasion.

From below the Río Grande on March 26 Arista, in conformance to instructions from his government, issued a declaration that all "foreigners who should disembark in any port of the Republic or penetrate by land into it, armed and with the object of attacking our territory," would be "treated and punished as Pirates."[16]  To aid in curtailing the possible infiltration of Texans and others into Mexican territory, the Minister of Foreign Affairs issued a circular on April 25 to the governor of each of the departments ordering them to list all foreigners in their departments and to see that each foreigner possessed "letters of security" which were necessary for legal residence in Mexico.[17]

About the time Arista issued his proclamation, referred to above, he informed the Mexican consul at New Orleans that all the revolutionists who had repented and submitted to the authority of the supreme government had been pardoned in accordance with the instructions that had been given to him, and that peace now reigned in