there are other claims filed since the adjournment of the convention, on which the claimants themselves have placed no estimate.

Of this seven and a half millions of dollars, which an impartial estimate would probably reduce to five millions, nothing has been paid, with the exception of three quarter-yearly instalments out of the twenty quarter-yearly instalments, into which the first adjudicated item of $2,26,139 68 was divided, together with the addition of a small sum of interest.

It is believed not to be injustice to Mexico, to affirm that she has at different times resorted to many shifts and evasions, in order to avoid the payment of these claims; and there are some circumstances of peculiar aggravation, which have marked her conduct. In 1837, General Jackson, then President of the United States, declared in his message of that year, the sentiment of the government, in connection with these unsettled claims against Mexico. "The length of time since some of the injuries have been committed, the repeated and unavailing applications for redress, the wanton character of some of the outrages upon the persons of our citizens, upon the officers and flag of the United States, independent of recent insults to this government and people, by the late extraordinary Mexican minister, would justify, in the eyes of all nations, immediate war." Instead, however, of appealing to such an alternative, or making reprisals on Mexican commerce, as was advocated at the time by some, the American Congress was controlled by milder counsels, and the result was, that a special messenger was sent to Mexico, to make a formal demand for "justice and satisfaction," agreeably to the provisions of the treaty. Nothing, however, but promises were obtained; nor has any thing, with the exception of the instalments, as previously stated, been secured since. And while it may be remarked that the obligations which the Mexican government have thus laid itself under to the govern

ment of the United States, consequent on a long series of injuries to the persons, and spoliations to the property of many of her citizens, is a debt, if possible, of yet deeper obligation than that of private contracts; and that, although Mexico was long indulged by continued forbearance on the part of the United States government, in view of the unsettled affairs and supposed embarrassment of the treasury of the Mexican republic, yet the final plea on which the Mexican government has suspended its payments, is not inability but indisposition.

The origin of this feeling, and the subsequent action on the part of Mexico, in her relations with the United States, conduct us to another and the principal point of the controversy between the two nations. I allude to the ANNEXATION OF TEXAS TO THE UNITED STATES. This, evidently, must be considered as the principal cause of the open rupture between the two governments. Mexico, at least, seized on the occasion as an opportunity for making a bluster before the world, and where the matter was better understood, in a smaller way, before the United States. She was called on, in her own esteem, to vindicate her wounded dignity, and to express national indignation at a proceeding which she declared involved the integrity of the Mexican empire. But it may be a just inquiry, whether there did not lie a deeper reason— -if not various reasons-beneath this action of expressing national displeasure at the reception of supposed indignity from the United States. The Act of Congress of March 1st, 1845, for the annexation of Texas, at least, has been made a pretext for withholding the indemnity already agreed upon, and for resisting all overtures for an adjustment of the claims which have not as yet been jointly investigated. The Mexican minister, on the passage of this resolution of annexation, by Congress, demanded his passports; and the American min

ister in Mexico was notified that no further diplomatic relations could be continued between the two countries.

That Mexico had no right to complain of this simple act of the American Congress, annexing TEXAS, without specification of boundaries, is doubtless the correct view of the matter, in connection with the prevailing code of national law as generally maintained by the nations of Europe and America. Texas had declared her independence; and for years had successfully maintained it. It had been acknowledged by the United States, by Great Britain, and by France; and most certainly, therefore, had Great Britain and France, no just voice to raise, in opposition to the movement, in the counsels between the United States and Texas. Still, the opposition to the measure on the part of Mexico was made to the bare act of the annexation of Texas, for, the boundaries between the Texan and Mexican territories were left, by the Act of Annexation, to be adjusted by future negotiation between the Mexican government and the United States. Mexico claimed all of Texas, as a revolted province; and all of her public acts, so far as they have been developed to show her displeasure towards the United States up to the time of the withdrawal of the Mexican minister, and the measures attendant on that act of non-intercourse between the two nations, were predicated on her assumed right to all of Texas, as if that province was still an integral part of the republic of Mexico. Therefore, up to this period of the controversies between the two countries, the question of boundaries entered not among the causes of complaint against the United States by the government of Mexico.

Diplomatic relations between the two countries having now terminated, by the withdrawal of the Mexican minister plenipotentiary from Washington, and passports tendered to and received by the American minister at Mexico, a state of

non-intercourse succeeded, while the American consuls yet held their places, both at Mexico and Vera Cruz.

The policy of uniting Texas to the United States has been amply discussed before the American people. That it shall tend to augment SLAVERY in the United States or generally, for one, I do not nor ever have believed. On the contrary, it has always appeared to me, that the natural tendency of the measure will be to relieve Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky, of their slave population, and to hasten the period when these States shall be reckoned among the free States of the Union. This, not because annexation will produce a change upon the public sentiment of public men in those States, as to the moral bearing of the question of slavery, but the true and best policy for these States will be to send their slaves south, and to fill up their own territory with a free population; and therefore, self-interest will dictate the final consummation of this result.

But this measure of annexation, whether for good or for ill, has certainly given to the American people, a feeling that their destiny is to spread over an extent of territory, which is not as yet possessed by them. And that conservative principle, which has heretofore controlled the public councils of our nation, namely, that our truest interest lies in confining our national limits within the territory already possessed, has given way before a feeling, if not of ambition, yet of a species of self-complacency, at the idea that the best welfare of the North American continent is connected with the universal establishment of our institutions over its length and its breadth. But regardless of lessons taught by the history of the past, which it must be confessed should be modified in the application of their natural deductions to ourselves in this era of the world as to the extending of the boundaries of a Republic, yet there are elements that will be introduced by extending ourselves much beyond

our present limits, which will tend to endanger the stability of our Union. And yet, to counteract these, the facilities of association, and other developments that science is making in this age of our world and republic, present their counterbalancing considerations and encouragements. A Southern Republic looms up in the visions of some, in view of our probable onward extension and aggrandizement. And if the final annexation of all of Mexico could enter into the wild dreams of the North American republic, and be consummated, there would be something to be apprehended in the effect which the Papal system of religion would have upon the political interests of our country, directed as that system is by the body of Priests who are connected with it; and controlled as the masses sometimes are or may be, through the confessional, and under other political influences connected with the Roman Catholic adhesiveness, were it not, that the country would be thrown open, by the constitution, to the ingress of Protestants, whose greater energy, generally superior intelligence, and final accession to the wealth of the country, would check and control the effects of an otherwise to be apprehended institution, with its politicalmeddling priesthood.

But to return to the progress of the difficulties between the two governments of Mexico and the United States, as resulting from the annexation of Texas to the American Union. The Mexican minister having left the country on the consummation of the act of annexation by the United States Congress, and passports having been tendered by the Mexican government to the American minister then resident at the city of Mexico, with the declaration that diplomatic intercourse could no longer be continued between the two governments, it, of course, in point of etiquet, became necessary for Mexico to make the first overture, whenever diplomatic relations should be renewed or desired. Matters had