Page:History of the War between the United States and Mexico.djvu/52

40 was communicated to the Secretary of State of the United States, and in which it was denied that the British government had sought, in any manner, to establish a dominant influence in Texas, or to disturb the tranquillity of the slave-holding states. The desire of Great Britain to promote the abolition of slavery in Texas, was admitted by her secretary, but he declared that she would not "seek to compel, or unduly control," either her, or Mexico.

Much of the alarm manifested on this subject may have been unfounded, and the facts do not warrant the conclusion, that the government of Great Britain ititended to interfere directly in the matter. Still, it was for her interest to destroy the competition between the slave labor of the southern states, and the free labor of her West Indian colonies; the Oregon question threatened to disturb her peaceful relations with the United States, and several of her leading journals called the public attention to the importance of Texas as a cotton growing state, and predicted her future independence of the American Union, if she could secure the monopoly of that product in another quarter; and besides, the foreign policy of England has not always been of the most frank and open character. The protection of an association of merchants in the East Indies, of a fur company in North America, and of the opium trade in China, furnished excuses for the extension of her power and authority in those quarters of the globe; and the philanthropic motives which she avowed, might have served a similar purpose in regard to Texas. Private individuals could have acquired interests in that country, which England would have