refused it. His able championship of the cause of United States merchants, investors, and travelers in their controversies with Mexican officials widened the growing breach. His schemes for getting Texas were met from the first by a flat refusal; and his government's persistently repeated renewal of them roused bitter hostility. Attempts to remove suspicions and allay fears only increased them. -Political enemies of those who were friendly to Poinsett's policies fanned the smoldering embers of distrust into flames of bitter hatred for him and the government which sent and kept him there. The few years of orderly government in Mexico during which under more favorable circumstances friendly relations might have been established with the United States, thus obviating a half century of discord and a century of distrust, were passed in quibblings and misunderstandings.

In a careful study of these quibblings and misunderstandings during the years 1825 to 1829 are to be found the origin and to a considerable extent the explanation of those apparently irreconcilable differences which grew greater and greater during the next two decades, finally provoking the war which resulted not only in the United States keeping Texas but seizing more than half of the remainder of Mexican territory, thereby confirming the worst fears and suspicions that Mexico had entertained of the motives of her northern neighbor.

The sources that have been drawn upon for this study are described in the comments on authorities at

the end of the volume. By far the larger part of the information has been taken from manuscripts in the archives of the Department of State in Washington and of the Ministry of Foreign Relations in Mexico. Only a few of either have been published. And of those published most are only extracts, the cipher passages and other more important portions having been withheld because at the time when the documents were published these portions could not have been included without involving the Washington government in difficulties with Mexico or with discordant factions within the United States.

The chapter on "Texas and the Boundary Issue" has already been published in very nearly its present form in the seventeenth volume of the Southwestern Historical Quarterly; portions of the third, sixth, and tenth chapters in a modified form under the title, "Poinsett's Mission to Mexico: a Discussion of his Interference in Internal Affairs," have been published in both English and Spanish in the seventh volume of the American Journal of International Law, and its Spanish edition, La Revista Americana de Derecho Internacional; the Mississippi Valley Historical Review, volume I, has printed in a modified form the chapter on "Diplomacy Concerning the Opening of the Santa Fé Trail"; and the proceedings of the Panama-Pacific Historical Congress at San Francisco in 1915 contain a portion of the chapter on "British Influence in Mexico."

For courteous treatment and liberal assistance, I hereby acknowledge my indebtedness to Señor Las

curain, who was minister for foreign relations in the Madero cabinet, and Señors Galindo and Camarena in charge of the archives of that office; to Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson, and Secretary O'Shaughnessy in charge of the Embassy archives; to Dr. Buck and others in the archives of the Department of State at Washington, and Mr. Stanton in the library of that department; and to Dr. Bishop and his assistants of the Library of Congress, and Dr. Hunt of the Manuscripts Division of that library. For assistance in correcting manuscript and reading proof, I am under obligations to my wife.

WILLIAM R. MANNING.

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS, AUSTIN,

October, 1915.

CHAPTER I

BEGINNINGS: EARLY MEXICAN REPRESENTATIVES AT WASHINGTON

Difficulties and delays attended the opening of the permanent legation of Mexico at Washington; but they were not due to any lack of interest on the part of the new Mexican government. The importance of establishing friendly relations with the neighboring republic to the north at the earliest possible moment was fully appreciated. Within less than three weeks after the provisional government was fully organized a minister plenipotentiary had been appointed and was preparing to go to Washington.

It was on September 27, 1821, that Iturbide's army entered the city of Mexico and took possession of the quarters which had been vacated only four days earlier by the royalist troops. On September 28, the Provisional Junta was formally installed. On October 4, the cabinet of four ministers was formed. On October 25, a citizen of the United States by the name of Wilcocks wrote to John Quincy Adams, the secretary of state at Washington, concerning the friendly attitude of the new government toward the United States. He said: "On this subject I have had various conferences with the leading members of the administration, whose sentiments will be fully explained to you shortly by Don Juan Manuel de Elizalda, the minister pleni