Reyes, however, Canales admitted having permitted the Texas flag "once to be hoisted in the desert," south of the Nueces, for the purpose of securing the Texans "more effectually under the national flag," under which they were "to render their services."[169]  His righteous indignation at Karnes' demand for recognition of the southern boundary of Texas at the Río Grande has a hollow ring when Canales, himself, at the very time Karnes' letter was supposed to have been written, was seeking a dismemberment of his own country and the creation of a northern republic.

Canales' hatred of the Texans, whom the Mexicans often called Americans, persisted, as is evident from a manifesto he issued as a general officer in the Mexican army, on April 4, 1847, urging "reprisals" against Americans and requiring his citizens "to give no quarter to Americans, whether armed or unarmed."[170]

Cárdenas, too, on November 2, the anniversary of Colonel Pavón's defeat, indicated his desire to terminate the war and to resume the one against Texas, having gained important information about that country during his recent visit.[171]  Once more the specter of dismemberment of the Mexican nation had risen as in 1835 to cool the enthusiasm of the Mexican Federalists in their cooperation with the Texans. In 1835 the increasing number of outspoken demands for independence in Texas and for annexation to the United States had caused a number of ardent Federalists, opposed to the dictatorship of Santa Anna, to abandon temporarily their political views in the interest of maintaining the territorial integrity of the nation. Among them had been General José Antonio Méxia and Antonio Canales. Although the General Council in Texas had printed and issued on December 11, 1835, a statement that the object of the Texans was not independence, as the Centralists under Santa Anna were asserting, but the restoration of the federal constitution of 1824, and although the Council had appealed to the Mexican republicans for cooperation, Canales' agent, Captain Julian Miracle, who had gone to Texas, had apparently caught and reported the undercurrent of the sentiment among certain elements in Texas for independence and annexation to the United States.[172]  The