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Show : at AR o Ppt elie Pal é TEXAS-SANTA FE EXPEDITION 73 ee facts and circumstances, taken as an entirety , fail to uphold his contention, for in reality they were an armed, invading force, entering a country claimed by Mexico, whether justly or unjustly it makes no difference, for the purpose of hoistin g the Texan flag by connivance with traitors and outsiders.®! To be sure, it was not proposed to undertake the conquest of New Mexico with a force of three hundred Texans against the will of the inhabitants; but, if the people were willing, the Texans were on hand ready to make that sort of a conquest. It cannot be said that such an enterprise was not hostile to Mexico, and while no apology can be offered for the barbarous manner in which the Texans were treated by the infamous Salazar, still the Texans were in the wrong and they received what sometimes has come through the ‘‘fortunes of war.’’ They were nothing more or less than armed invaders, who might be expected to meet with opposition, and if defeated to be treated as rebels, or at best, as Texas belligerency and independence had 2 - * —¥--6-¢-— Sar os Se pee ete oe heedoe rs ee rt , i ee ee eee ee Fe ee ee are re © — a alle a a . aeeene 3S Pk ee nated THE been recognized PD Rr 7 ata % « | sili ye 51 70) 0) by several nations, as prisoners of war. The expedition left Austin in the month of June, 1841. There were six companies, under the command of Hugh McLeod, brevet brigadier-general of the Texan army. Accompanying them came three commissioners, Colonel William G. Cooke, José Antonio Na- varro, and Dr. Richard F. Brenham. The commissioners Le e *! Bancroft, H. H., History of Arizona and New Mexico, pp. carried 319-320: Hitherto there had been little or no direct intercou rse between the New Mexicans and their neighbors of the adjoining but distant Texas; yet the Comparative success of the eastern rebels was not unknown to the less fortunate agitators of the west. of 1837-8, had Fé traders from Which might for “specially those ‘yMpathy with Texan influences, probably not inactive in the troubles been potent in fomenting later discontent. Santa the United States seem as a class to have feared a revolution, a time imperil their commercial interests; but among them, who had become residents, there was an element fully in the filibusters. These sympathizers reported that the New certainly €xicans awaited only an opportunity to rise and declare their independence, oe that even the authorities were not disposed to offer much resistance. ian crediting these exaggerated reports, the Texans had a theory, without Oundatio n pa in fact or justice, and it was therefore that their territory their duty to release from extended tyranny to the all Rio inhabitants territory, including, of course, the New Mexicans living east of the ree rs ll in Wiles? Register, 1xi., 61, 100, is a letter from Santa Fé, which represents anyte®. Pueblo Indians and Americans, with two-thirds of the Mexicans, as 8 for the Texans to come. The governor tells the writer that he “Fr can nor will resist. That such reports were circulated and believed in ae Other and documentary the United States is shown by the general tenor of all the records evidence of conditions as they then existed. |