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Capture and Death of Dimitt

office the judge who had presided at the trial because he had, it was said, accepted a bribe from Kinney.[62]  John Sutherland, who was arrested in Mexico soon after the seizure of Dimitt, informed the British minister that he could prove that Kinney and Aubrey caused his arrest, for they had "wantonly abused and villified" him in many ways.[63]

Kinney returned to Corpus Christi on August 13, where he found, as he had expected, "a Gang of desperadoes on our frontier perfectly regardless of the rights of any one, robbing indiscriminately and not wishing to know or hear of any Orders to the contrary." Aubrey and Kinney informed Lamar that if this condition continued, their trading post would have to be abandoned, but that if the government "should determine to station men near the Nueces under a responsible Officer," they declared, "we shall be pleased to cooperate with them for the benefit and credit of our Country; otherwise a band of robber Texians will soon be in possession of the fairest portion of the Country."[64]  Apprehensive for their own personal safety, they added in a postscript: "As we are at present more or less entirely at the mercy of the company of men spoken of we beg that this shall remain in your hands solely confidential."

Other traders in the Corpus Christi area, too, were not happy about the situation on the frontier. "I fully appreciate the motives of the Honble. B. T. Archer in sending out the Volunteer Companies from Victoria," wrote S. L. Jones, a newcomer in the Mexican trade, "but the Country will have much to regret if some immediate steps are not taken to restrain them in the proper discharge of their duty. At present," he continued, "I fear they are transgressing all authority vested in them, as a company came to this place a few days since and carried off several Horses amongst them some belonging to Aubrey & Kinney. This act was committed under the pretence that the Horses were Mexican property."[65]  There seems to have been considerable delay, and possibly dragging of the feet, in getting through to the chief justice at San Patricio and to the frontier the government's order to the chief



62. Thomas Newcomb to Alanson Ferguson, Aug. 8, 1841, in Domestic Correspondence (Texas), 1836-1846, ms.

63. John Sutherland to Richard Pakenham, Feb. 25, 1842, in English-Mexican Diplomatic Correspondence, 1841-1842, Public Records Office, London, England.

64. Aubrey and Kinney to M. B. Lamar, Corpus Christi, Aug. 15, 1841 (Confidential), in Lamar Papers, III, 562-563.

65. S. L. Jones to Gen. M. B. Lamar, Corpus Christi, Aug. 18, 1841, in ibid., III, 563-565.

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