1808-18.

REVOLUTIONS IN MEXICO.

3

of the doctrine that bears his name, and the early settlement of Texas.

The uprising of the Spaniards against Joseph Bonaparte, in June, 1808, had been followed by a struggle between the new King and the revolutionary juntas that sprang up in every Spanish city and struggled for control of the American colonies. Chief among these dependencies of the Crown was Mexico. There the natives of Spain and the Mexicans in office, influenced by the emissaries of Bonaparte, would gladly have obeyed the order of the Council of the Indies and declared for King Joseph. The Viceroy Iturigaroy and the Mexican people, led by the agents of the junta of Seville, were for adhering to Ferdinand Seventh; but, when agents of other juntas appeared and claimed to govern the country, the people in their distraction appealed to the viceroy to establish a revolutionary government for Mexico. As he was about to comply, the Spaniards holding office under the Crown seized and committed him to the prison of the Inquisition. When the junta of Seville heard of this, it approved the act, and appointed the Archbishop of Mexico viceroy. He was soon removed, however, and the government intrusted to the Court of Audience, which held it when the victories of Napoleon in Spain scattered the junta of Saville for the time being. It reassembled, however, at Cadiz, and sent out Don José Venegas as viceroy.

The dispersion of the junta had been the signal for a revolt of the native Mexicans under the lead of Don Miguel Hidalgo, a curate of Dolores, in the province of Guanaxuato. Half-breeds and creoles, Indians and mestizos, even royal troops, hurried to his standard, and, with an army growing as it marched, he set off for and took the city of Guanaxuato. The revolt now became general, and Hidalgo, after providing abundance of munitions with the money found in the city treasury, started for Mexico. His troops were many and enthusiastic; his supplies were plentiful; all opposition melted away as he approached, and there seemed to be nothing to stop his triumphant progress. But, though the viceroy had few troops, he had a weapon which to the ignorant and superstitious rabble that followed Hidalgo was far more terrible

VOL. V.

than guns and soldiers-the spiritual arms of Rome. This he used, and Hidalgo and his followers were excommunicated. To weapons of this sort the revolted priest paid no heed, and made his way to the outskirts of the city of Mexico. But his people had deserted him in such numbers that he was forced to retreat, was pursued, betrayed, taken, and executed in the usual Mexican way. One of his followers, Bernardo Gutierres, made good his escape, and, after a long flight across Texas, found refuge at Natchitoches, where he made the acquaintance of Lieutenant Augustus W. Magee.

Magee was a graduate of West Point, had caught the spirit of the Wilkinson school of soldiers on the frontier, and was quickly persuaded by Gutierres to join in an attempt to conquer Texas. To get followers was an easy matter, for the neutral strip which lay between the Sabine and the Arroyo Hondo had long been inhabited by a lawless, desperate set of freebooters, who lived by plundering the overland trade between Mexico and New Orleans, and were ready for any enterprise however reckless. A call to them to join the “Republican Army of the North" and receive forty dollars a month and a league of land in the Republic of Texas was promptly responded to, and in June, 1812, one hundred and fifty, under Gutierres, began their march for Spanish Bluffs, on the Trinity river. With the history of that army-how it captured Nacogdoches and the fort at Spanish Bluffs; how it crossed the Colorado and was besieged by Don Manuel de Salcedo, Governor of Texas, at La Bahia; how it drove him to San Antonio; how it captured the town, and treacherously put to death Salcedo, Simon de Herrera, Governor of New Leon, and a host of officers-need not be related. With the capture of San Antonio success left the Republicans. They deposed Gutierres, placed Don José Alvarez Toledo in command, were defeated, and in two months' time the few that remained were back on the west bank of the Sabine.

After establishing a camp at Gaines's Ferry, Toledo returned to the United States, collected arms, ammunition, and a few men, whom he led to El Puente del Rey, a place between Vera Cruz and Jalapa, fortified it, and waited for the troops of the Mexican republic to join him.

1812-1817.

STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY IN TEXAS.

5

The fall of Hidalgo had not ended the struggle for independence. Another priest, Morelos by name, had rebelled, had raised an army in the southwestern provinces, had won a great battle at Tixtla, and had summoned a congress to meet at Chilpanzingo, which in 1812 published a declaration of independence, and sent Don José Manuel Herrera to represent the Mexican republic in the United States. But with the death of Morelos, while on his way to join Toledo at El Puente del Rey, the cause of the Republicans languished, and the duty of reviving it fell on Herrera.

For three years his efforts were fruitless; but in December, 1815, Don Luis Aury, with three small vessels, broke through the Spanish fleet which then besieged Cartagena and escaped. Gathering about him, as commodore of the joint fleet of Mexico, Venezuela, La Plata, and New Granada, some fifteen vessels, Aury was about to scour the gulf when Herrera persuaded him to co-operate in another attempt to conquer Texas. Learning from the former pirates of Barataria of the splendid harbor afforded by Galveston Bay, the commodore and the Minister decided to occupy it, and in September, 1816, landed on its beach, raised the flag of the republic, established a government, and chose Aury civil and military Governor of Texas and Galveston Island, which were declared part of the Republic of Mexico.

Success now seemed near. Men joined him from the United States. The pirates of Barataria, glad of a place of refuge, took service under his flag. A great slave-trade which he opened with New Orleans brought money, and, what was equally important, his army was increased by the unexpected arrival of Xavier Mina, a gallant soldier of Navarre, with arms, ammunition, military stores, and two hundred wellofficered troops. By the spring of 1817 there were thus gathered at Galveston some six hundred fighting men under three commanders-Aury, Xavier Mina, and Colonel Perry-all ready and eager to act. Just at this time some letters taken by a privateer from a Spanish ship made known the defenceless state of the town of Soto la Marina-sixty miles up the Santander river—and against this, in April, the three commanders set out. It fell without opposition, and with its

fall the expedition ended and the leaders parted. Aury, in a fit of jealousy, went back to Galveston. Mina, eager for more conquests, announced his determination to march farther inland. Perry, protesting that such a march was madness, led his troops toward the United States. Ill fortune attended them all. Mina was captured by the royal troops and put to death; Perry, after a desperate fight at La Bahia, in which every man who followed him was slain, blew out his brains on the field of battle; Aury, on his return to Galveston, found the place in the hands of the pirates, with Lafitte in command, and, after a vain effort to establish himself at Matagorda, he sailed away to join McGregor at Amelia Island, whence the United States drove him out.

With 1819 came the Spanish treaty, the adoption of the Sabine as part of the boundary, and the relinquishment of the claims of the United States to Texas. All over the southwest that treaty awakened profound indignation, but nowhere did it rise so high as in the town of Natchez. From it had gone out each of the expeditions which since the days of Philip Nolan had invaded Texas. To it had come for refuge every leader who, after his discomfiture, had escaped death. In it as a great river town enjoying a fine trade with the interior of Tennessee was gathered the most reckless, lawless, enterprising population-flatboatmen, steamboatmen, frontiersmen-to be found on the river. To them an appeal was made by the leaders of the new attempt, and at a public meeting a company of seventy-five volunteers was raised for the invasion of Texas. Dr. James Long, who, after serving as a surgeon at the battle of New Orleans, had settled at Natchez, was chosen to command, and early in June the little band set out for Nacogdoches. As they passed across Louisiana and crossed the Sabine and entered the old neutral ground, every survivor of former bands hurried to join them, so that when Nacogdoches was reached Long had with him some three hundred men. Among them was Bernardo Gutierres.

At Nacogdoches the "patriots"-so they called themselves-established a provisional government, appointed a supreme council of nine, and issued a proclamation declaring Texas to be a free and independent republic. The citizens

1819.

LONG IN TEXAS.

7

of Texas, so the document reads, have long indulged the hope that when the boundaries of the Spanish possessions in America were drawn, Texas would be brought within the United States. An expectation so flattering has prevented any serious effort to throw off the yoke of Spain. But the recent treaty has dispelled the illusion so long and so fondly cherished, and roused the citizens of Texas from the torpor into which a fancied security lulled them. Spurning the fetters of colonial vassalage, scorning to submit to an atrocious despotism, they have therefore resolved, under the blessing of God, to be free, and are prepared unshrinkingly to meet and firmly to sustain any conflict in which this declaration may involve them.*

The supreme council then proceeded to make laws for raising revenue and disposing of the public lands, established a printing office, and despatched Colonel Gaines to Galveston to ask aid of Lafitte. The old pirate chief assured the officer that Long had his best wishes for success, but told him that the fate of Perry, Mina, and a host of others ought to show how idle it was to wage war by land with a small force of men. Long, however, would not profit by the advice, and, thinking that a personal visit to Lafitte might bring success, he set off for Galveston, and got back to find the Royalist army close at hand, his own forces scattered, and with difficulty made his escape to the United States.

Scarcely had Long and his troops been scattered when Moses and Stephen Austin, the final conquerors of Texas, made their appearance. Moses Austin was a native of Dur ham, in Connecticut, but, after a series of migrations, had taken up his abode about 1800 at the lead mines of Missouri, then a part of Spanish Louisiana. Whether it was the restless spirit which had driven him half across a continent, or the treaty of 1819, or the rapid settlement of Missouri, that turned his attention to Texas is uncertain, but it is known that in that year he began to make inquiries as to the best way of bringing a plan for the settlement of Texas before the au

Issued at Nacogdoches, June 23, 1819. Printed in full in Nile's Register, vol. xvii, p. 81.