. . . not taken up arms to sell, or to cede, or to deliver up our territory to strange persons. Our object, [he allegedly wrote] was nothing less than to establish a frank, enlightened and phylanthropic Government, which would make for the happiness of our country. Such noble objects moved us to abandon our family and our interests, exposing our existence to establish these principles. And after so many s[a]crifices, so much hard labor, suffering and miseries of all kinds to which our destiny had reduced us, do you wish, sir, to propose us in recompence that we should commit treason to our country? Could you sir, have believed us to be capable of committing such villany? No doubt you have made a mistake, measuring all Mexicans with one and the same strockle [sic][*]. Canales declared he had no horses or cattle for Karnes' men, "if it be for the object you solicit them." "Should any of your forces be willing to come subject to my orders, and for the pay when it can be had, they shall be well received, and shall be furnished with horses and provisions; on the contrary, they will be the first enemy with whom I shall be compelled to fight." Nowhere in his letter does Canales mention the Republic of the Río Canales ever sent such a letter, and it is even more certain that had its contents been known among the Americans in his command, they would have withdrawn, if they did not force him beyond the Río Grande. The Catholic priest at San Antonio refused to permit the tolling of the bells of San Fernando church at the funeral of Colonel Henry W. Karnes. "Resolutions adopted at a Public Meeting, San Antonio, August 17, 1840, in Memory of Henry W. Karnes," in Texas Sentinel, Aug. 29, 1840. We are not asking for benefit of scriptures, say the resolutions, but for the tolling of the bell, "which in a frontier village, has ever been used indiscriminately for evil and spiritual purposes" and should be tolled on an occasion of a "national grief." 21. Lic. [Antonio] Canales to Col. H. W. Karnes, Lipantitlán, Aug. 4, 1840, in Telegraph and Texas Register, Aug. 31, 1842. [Ed: * - strockle, an alternate spelling of strokle, "an instrument used by glassmakers to empty the metal from one pot to another". Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language, second edition, William Collins + World Publishing Co., 1975.] |