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Republic of the Río Grande and Texas

northern Mexico. However, he hastened to say that he had two thousand troops, rested and without employment, ready

. . . to hurl against the first [Texans] who dare to cross the frontier. Matamoros is garrisoned with 1,400 veterans and Tampico with 1,000. This imposing position in which we find ourselves will be terrible to the Texans who will not enjoy much longer the land which they have stolen. In short, in the position in which we find ourselves, I wish that that perverse man, the traitor Anaya, may come, with the adventurers whom he succeeds in deluding, to receive the pay which the law owes him for his crimes.[18]

This unfortunate one, reported Arista, has committed many crimes, but "the most terrible, the unpardonable one to the Nation was the betraying of the Country by attracting foreigners; he allied himself with the Texians and in union with them fought Mexican troops."[19]  Nevertheless, when it came to dealing with Zapata, Arista is said to have treated him with the "utmost politeness" and to have offered him a commission of colonel in the regular Mexican army,[20]  but when this offer was proudly rejected by the defiant Zapata, he was promptly court-martialed and executed.

In concluding his letter to the Mexican consul at New Orleans, Arista requested the consul to inform him if the whereabouts of Canales and Cárdenas, who have plunged themselves among the guileless ones of Texas, should ever become known to him. A few weeks later at Saltillo, in the name of the President, Arista published notice of a general amnesty to all of the Federalists "who may become convinced of their errors . . . [especially] since the battle of Morelos" and who might wish to avail themselves of the clemency of a "paternal government." The terms on which the pardon would be granted were: (1) the individual must report in person to the civil authority of the department in which they reside for one month; (2) he must agree not to venture more than twenty leagues beyond the department without previously obtaining permission from competent authority; and (3) those who had served as officers or chiefs in the rebel forces must



18. Mariano Arista al Consul Mexicano, en N. Orleans, Cuartel General, Saltillo, Mayo 14 de 1840, in W. B. Stephens, "Collection," ms.

19. Mariano Arista to the Governor of the Department of Nuevo León, Monclova, April 8, 1840, in El Ancla, May 8, 1840.

20. Extract of a letter from C. Van Ness to the Adjutant and Inspector General [Hugh] McLeod, San Antonio, April 7, 1840, in Telegraph and Texas Register, April 22, 1840.

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AFTER SAN JACINTO: The Texas-Mexican Frontier, 1836-1841
Joseph Milton Nance, 1963