Page:Vol 5 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/625

Rh Reinosa to face the now allied opponents, but was so severely chastised during an attack on Cerralvo, at the close of November, that he took refuge across the border. In the following February he made a fresh inroad, with about five hundred men. The government was on the watch, however, and forced him back at once with considerable loss. The old tariff was now restored, to the relief of creditors and foreign traders, and pretexts for sympathetic pronunciamientos, notably at Tampico and in Vera Cruz, were removed.

The government lodged a reasonable protest against the criminal forbearance which permitted adventurers to enroll and equip in Texas for raids into Mexican territory. Orders were accordingly issued in the United States for checking such movements, but the local authorities had reasons for giving little heed to them. Mexico, therefore, remained exposed to this infliction, as well as to the inroads of wild Indians, for which her northern neighbor was likewise blamed, although less at fault. By the treaty of Guadalupe, the government of the United States had bound itself in a measure to check this evil, only to find the task beyond its power, owing to the habits of the savages and the vast expanse and wild nature of the region which sheltered them. It could not protect its own settlements against such swift and flitting marauders.