Orleans, each, 60,000 dollars. With these means, and with six thousand men, now ready to move at my order, out of fifteen thousand, which the Government has destined for the campaign, I shall march upon my return from Saltillo, to take possession of San Antonio and Goliad, from which places I shall offer the following terms to the old colonists: Land to all who have not obtained it; their ports free for ten or fifteen years; and a state legislature and government. Should these propositions have no effect, I will continue the war until the country is subdued. I have already given orders to my light troops to advance and commence hostile operations on the frontier. Believing that Seguin was willing to throw in with the Mexicans against the Texans, and using "every means in his power to induce him to do so,"[41] Arista went on to give pertinent information about the distribution of his troops and the plans of the campaign that he had in mind. When suddenly he realized that Seguin did not contemplate entering the Mexican service he withdrew from further conversation on the campaign. Seguin reported the distribution of the Mexican forces in the North as follows: 500 cavalry, 250 infantry, and 4 pieces of artillery under General Rafael Vasquez east of the Río Grande on the road to San Patricio with orders to take that place immediately;[42] General John D. Bradburn, from Matamoros, was to join Vasquez with 400 infantry at San Patricio; General Arista was at Monterey with 350 infantrymen, 150 cavalrymen, 4 eight-pounders, 2 culverins [Ed: long and heavy antique cannon] of four-pounds, and 2 eighteen-inch mortars; General Eredia [Ampudia?] was at Cadereyta with 500 infantry; 300 infantry and 200 cavalry were at Presidio del Río Grande; at Matamoros there were other troops and some sixty pieces of artillery, of all sizes, ready for the field; and General Juan José Andrade was moving up from San Luis Potosí to the northern frontier with 6,000 troops. Already it was said, Colonel Rodríquez had visited San Patricio with 80 horses. The 41. Quoted in Telegraph and Texas Register, Jan. 6, 1841. 42. Major James D. Cooke supplied the Houston Morning Star with a letter "from the most respectable source in Austin, dated the 23rd December" 1840, and based on information received at Austin on December 22 from San Antonio. The letter handed the Star is probably one written by Van Ness or a copy (possibly the original) of Seguin's letter to Van Ness. Seguin wrote Burnet on the 26th, "Your Excellency may have seen, in the note I handed to Mr. Van Ness . . ." The Morning Star quoted in the Telegraph and Texas Register, Jan. 6, 1841; J. N. Seguin to President of the Republic, Austin, Dec. 26, 1840, in ibid., Feb. 3, 1841; Mary A. Maverick to Agatha S. Adams, San Antonio de Béjar, Feb. 21, 1841, in Rena Maverick Green (ed.), Samuel Maverick: Texan, 1803-1870: A Collection of Letters, Journals, and Memoirs, pp. 138-140. |