Page:History of the War between the United States and Mexico.djvu/40

28 existing between the two countries were far from being of a friendly or pacific character. Had they been otherwise, it is not unlikely that the subjects of dispute which afterwards arose, and which constituted the immediate cause of war, would not have led to any interruption of the harmony demanded by the permanent welfare and happiness of both nations. But this predisposition to hostilities was heightened and strengthened by the negotiations for the acquisition of Texas, and assumed a positive and decided form, upon its incorporation into the American confederacy.

Prior to the year 1690, the territory embraced with in the limits of the present state of Texas, formed a nominal part of the conquest of Cortes. In that year the Spaniards drove out a French colony, who had established themselves at Matagorda, and made their first permanent settlement at San Francisco. The old Spanish town of San Antonio de Bexar, the original capital of the province, was founded in 1698; La Bahia, afterwards called Goliad, in 1716; Nacogdoches in 1732; and Victoria at a still later date. For many years, but little was known in regard to the soil, climate, or position of the country. Its limits were not accurately defined, nor its natural history correctly understood, by the Spanish historians and geographers, while it remained under the dominion of Spain. Humboldt's great work, "La Nouvelle Espagne," written in 1803, and published in 1807, is the most reliable authority of that day; but the boundaries laid down in his Atlas seem to have been arbitrarily adopted, as they do not follow any of those great natural landmarks which would probably have been selected, had they