Page:History of the War between the United States and Mexico.djvu/67

Rh themselves, it would seem to have been done merely by her sufferance. The authority exercised by Texas, in the valley of the Nueces, and upon its western bank, including the settlement at Corpus Christi, was undoubted and undeniable. In the other part of the territory in dispute, there could not have been one hundred persons as late as 1844, and it cannot be said with justice, that the Mexicans then had any "actual possession or ﬁxed habitation east of the Rio del Norte," between the Gulf of Mexico and "the mountainous barriers at the Pass," with the exception of what they might claim at Laredo and Brazos Santiago. Mr. Donelson, the American Chargé d'Affaires, called the attention of the government of the United States, and of General Taylor, to the existence of these settlements, or posts, in the spring of 1845. The latter was expressly instructed, when he entered the territory, not to interfere with the establishments made by Mexico, and to respect the rights and property of private citizens; and it is unnecessary to say, that his orders were faithfully observed.

But, in addition to these facts, Mexico herself, through her agents and ofﬁcers, tacitly admitted the claim of Texas to the lower Rio Grande, on several occasions; although, as a general thing, she made no distinction in regard to any part of the country between that river and the Sabine. Her claim extended to the whole of Texas, and the comparatively unimportant question of boundary was merged in the greater one of title. Always insisting upon her right to every part and parcel