then the pending treaty of limits would be submitted to the United States Congress along with that of commerce, in spite of the fact that the remissness of Mexico had caused the treaty of limits to lose all of its obligatory character.27 27 Van Buren to Butler, October 16, 1829, MS., Department of State, Instructions, American States, XIV, 149. CHAPTER XI COMMENTS ON AUTHORITIES MANUSCRIPTS Manuscripts in the Archives of the Department of State, Washington, D. C.: Despatches from Mexico, volumes I, II, III, and IV, and one volume of Duplicate Despatches from Poinsett, which contains some letters and many enclosures not in the regular volumes. Except a few letters at the beginning of the first, all five of these volumes are filled with letters and enclosures to the department from Poinsett in Mexico between the years 1825 and 1829. Instructions to United States Ministers in foreign countries, volumes IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, and XIV. Of course the instructions to the legation in Mexico occupy only a small part of these six volumes, since they include also instructions to all other countries where the United States had representatives. The last one, or possibly two, of these volumes is marked Instructions to American States, which became a separate series at that time. Secret Record, volume I, contains the instruction of Van Buren to Poinsett for the purchase of Texas in 1829. Notes from the Mexican Legation in Washington to the Department of State, volume I. These are not of very great importance or interest, since no imporant negotiation was conducted in Washington. Notes to the Mexican Legation in Washington were of still less value. Manuscripts in the Archivo de Relaciones Exteriores, Mexico: These are not bound, nor are they filed in any permanent form. Most of them are sewed together or merely folded in tiny bundles, called expedientes, each containing letters which deal with the same or closely related subjects. They can be, and frequently are, moved about and mixed up, so cannot be designated except by the name of the archive, "Relaciones Exteriores." Fifteen hundred or sixteen hundred pages of typewritten transcripts were made and used for this study. They are now the property of the School of History of the University of Texas and are filed in its archives. Photostat copies have been made by the Manuscripts Division of the Library of Congress at Washington. Manuscripts in the Archives of the United States Embassy in Mexico: Despatches from the Secretary of State of the United States, one volume; Despatches to the Secretary of State of the United States, two volumes; Notes to the Mexican Government, one volume; Notes from the Mexican Government, one volume; Miscellaneous Papers, Duplicate Despatches, etc., one volume. Nearly all of these series extend several years beyond the period covered by this study. Comparatively few manucripts relating to this period are to be found in the Embassy archives of which duplicates or the originals do not exist in the archives of the Department of State at Washington. Only in such cases have they been cited. Poinsett Manuscripts in the Archives of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, Philadelphia: Only a few volumes of this large collection relate to the period of Poinsett's residence in Mexico. And of these most are personal letters, nearly all being written to Poinsett. Only a very few are cited. Van Buren Manuscripts in the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.: Volumes IX and X contain the lengthy, interesting, and important documents showing the origin and growth of Jackson and Van Buren's plan for purchasing Texas in 1829. PUBLISHED DOCUMENTS American State Papers, Foreign Relations, volume V (1858), and volume VI (1859). Edited under authority of Congress and published by Gales and Seaton, Washington. The first of these contains a few and the second a large number of communications between the Department of State and Poinsett. But many of them are only extracts, the most interesting portions, nearly always including the valuable cipher paragraphs, being omitted. In most cases the documents here have been cited as well as the manuscripts in the archives. House of Representatives, Executive Documents, 25 Congress, I Session, number 42. This is a collection of documents, filling ninety-four pages, transmitted by the President at the request of Congress, containing negotiations relating to the boundary, and printed in 1837. House of Representatives, Executive Documents, 25 Congress, 2 Session, number 351. This collection contains more than eight hundred pages of documents, most of them concerning the boundary, submitted by the President in 1838. House of Representatives, Executive Documents, 32 Congress, I Session, number 121. This collection of fifty-nine pages relating to Cuba was submitted by the President and printed in 1852. Many important documents were withheld in all three of these house executive document collections, and of those printed many were only extracts. They have been cited in the same way as the American State Papers mentioned just above. British and Foreign State Papers, compiled by the Foreign Office, and published by the government, London. Volumes IX, XIII, XVI, and XXVI contain documents important for this study. Many of these documents are also found in one or more of the preceding collections of American official documents. Frequently two of these documentary sources have been cited in addition to the manuscript sources since |