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Republic of the Río Grande and Texas

"The Mexican officials," wrote Philip Young in his History of Mexico in 1847, "are admirable diplomatists, they can spin out a negotiation and involve an unsuspicious envoy in so many difficulties, that he needs the thread of Ariadne to make his escape from the mazes of the political labyrinth into which they have entangled him."[58]

As the months passed, it became apparent that neither President Bustamante nor his Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Juan de Dios Cañedo, would be willing to recognize the independence of Texas, much less accept the boundary at the Río Grande.[59]  It became evident that Mexico was only indulging in a shrewd diplomatic game at the expense of Texas, playing for time to keep the Texan government from allying itself with the revolutionists in Mexico. The defeat of the Federalists at Morelos and the almost complete dispersion of the rebels in the north, declared Treat, "will serve to strengthen the present Ministry."[60]  The Mexican government was pictured as "timid or bold just in proportion to its weakness or Strength."

While Federalism seemed to be dying in the north, it was breaking out in the south. Early in June 1840 a rebellion broke out in Yucatán, and the government continued to play for time, hoping to gain strength at home before acting on the Texan propositions. Although most members of the Mexican Congress and a number of other governmental officials, believed Treat, knew that Texas was irrevocably lost to Mexico and that it would undoubtedly be advantageous to settle her difficulties with her former province by concluding a treaty, "they were afraid to act because such a measure would certainly be unpopular, so unpopular, in fact, that the Cabinet might be broken up as a result and the men lose their portfolios."[61]

By early summer it was apparent to Lamar and his Secretary of State that Mexico had no intention of coming to terms with Texas,



Journal of the House of Representatives of the Republic of Texas, Fifth Congress, Appendix, p. 279.

58. Philip Young, History of Mexico: Her Civil Wars, and Colonial and Revolutionary Annals, from the Period of the Spanish Conquest, 1520, to the Present Time, 1847; including an Account of the War with the United States, pp. 265-266.

59. James Treat to M. B. Lamar, City of Mexico, Dec. 31, 1839; Same to Same, Mexico, Jan. 7, 1840, in Garrison (ed.), Diplomatic Correspondence of Texas, 1908, II, 523-529; Schmitz, Texan Statecraft, pp. 110-111.

60. James Treat to M. B. Lamar, Mexico, April 10, 1840 (confidential), in Garrison (ed.), Diplomatic Correspondence of Texas, 1908, II, 601-605.

61. Schmitz, Texan Statecraft, p. 111.

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