Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 1.djvu/354

336 minister from Mexico to the United States, published a memoir upon Texas in which, whilst describing the Texan department of Bejar, he says—"That notwithstanding it has been hitherto believed that the Rio de las Nueces is the dividing line of Coahuila and Texas, inasmuch as it is always thus represented on maps, I am informed by the government of the state, that geographers have been in error upon this subject; and that the true line should commence at the mouth of the river Aransaso, and follow it to its source; thence, it should continue by a straight line until it strikes the junction of the rivers Medina and San Antonio, and then, pursuing the east bank of the Medina to its head waters, it should terminate on the confines of Chihuahua."

The true origin of the Mexican war was not this march of Taylor and his troops from the Nueces to the Rio Grande, through the debatable land. The American and Mexican troops were brought face to face by the act, and hostilities were the natural result after the exciting annoyances upon the part of the Mexican government which followed the union of Texas with our confederacy. Besides this, General Paredes, the usurping president, had already declared in Mexico, on the 18th of April, 1846, in a letter addressed to the commanding officer on the northern frontier, that he supposed him at the head of a valiant army on the theatre of action;—and that it was indispensable to commence hostilities, ''the Mexicans themselves taking the initiative! ''

We believe that our nation and its rulers earnestly desired honorable peace, though they did not shun the alternative of war. It was impossible to permit a conterminous neighbor who owed us large sums of money, and was hostile to the newly adopted state, to select unopposed her mode and moment of attack. Mexico would neither resign her pretensions upon Texas, negotiate, receive our minister, nor remain at peace. She would neither declare war, nor cultivate friendship, and the result was, that when the armies approached each other, but little time was lost in resorting to the cannon and the sword.

As soon as General Taylor reached the Rio Grande he left a command at the mouth of the river, and taking post opposite Matamoros erected a fort, the guns of which bore directly upon the city. The Mexicans, whose artillery might have been brought to play upon the works, from the opposite side of the river, made no hostile demonstration against the left bank for some time, nor did they interrupt the construction of the fort. Reinforcements,