a similar number -- Colonel Cayetano Montero, Lieutenant Colonel José María Carrasco, and Captain Francisco Schiafino -- representing General Reyes, then at Mier, to arrange the terms of surrender. A convention was concluded and signed at 2 o'clock on the morning of November 6 on the right bank of the Río Bravo opposite Camargo, and was ratified by both Canales (in El Campo en el Rodeo) and Reyes,[176]  and sent by the latter under special courier at 10 o'clock that night to General Arista at Cadereyta for his approval.[177]  At the same time Carrasco sent word to Arista that "My Cousin Canales, I am sure, will be in these towns [of the North] your best friend and in my opinion your most active collaborator." Cárdenas, who had marched to Laredo, he said, had sent several agents to say that he was willing to quit. "This friend is frank; he is grateful to you," Carrasco wrote Arista, "and will never fail you because he is a gentleman."[178]

Meanwhile, on November 7, Arista gave approval of the armistice concluded between Reyes, commander of the Second Division of the Army Corps of the North (cavalry), and Canales.[179]  Upon the arrival of the Convention on the 8th at Cadereyta, Arista quickly approved it, with a few minor reservations (it was said that he hoped, by his approval, to gain local influence and Canales' support for his own contemplated revolution).[180]  To Cárdenas, "the philosopher," Arista wrote that by his surrender of arms a "real service" had been rendered to the frontier and to the whole nation; first, by bringing about peace and permitting the nation to defend itself from the barbarians; and,