retreat, directing their steps as fugitives towards the capital of Texas, where they arrived about the 1st of May, having secured the friendship of the Comanches, and other Indian tribes, through whose territory they passed, by assuring them that he and his followers were nothing more than missionaries and traders. Canales soon enlisted the sympathy of the Texan government, and, after a few days spent in negotiations with the president of Texas, which were strictly private, Canales left Austin for Galveston, where he was followed by the Texan president, who arrived at Galveston on 20th of May, when the private negotiations were renewed, and continued between the contracting parties to the 25th, when Canales embarked on board a Texan armed schooner, the San Jacinto, Captain Postelle, for Live Oak Point, a small settlement in Western Texas, to make arrangements for the disembarkation at that point of 500 volunteers, which he raised in Texas, with the consent of the Texan government during his short visit. Canales had but one Mexican officer with him, Colonel Caravajal, who was formerly a surveyor in Texas, when under the Mexican government. He, however, engaged General Baker and Colonel Wigginton, with several other Texan officers of inferior rank. The first place to be attacked by Canales was Matamoros, a Mexican garrison, about thirty miles from the mouth of the Rio Grande. On the 28th the first draft of volunteers followed Canales, in two schooners, con

voyed by two Texan armed schooners; and on the 30th another draft arrived at Galveston, from the interior of Texas, for the same service. This draft consisted of thirty-two men: and on the 8th of June another body of men sailed from New Orleans, for the same destination. The exact extent of territory claimed by the republic of Rio Grande is as follows. From the river Nueces (the western boundary of Texas) on the east, to the western boundary-line of the state of Durango, on the west, and from the Gulf of Mexico, on the south, to the northern boundary of the state of Chihuahua, on the north.

Canales had scarcely turned his back before the result of his private conference with the Texan ruler was divulged, and was currently reported as follows:-The entire Texan fleet, consisting of one corvette, two brigs, and the three schooners already alluded to, were to be employed in the federalist service in the first instance; but so soon as the latter possessed themselves of a seaport, the whole fleet was to have been sold or handed over to Rio Grande by the Texan government, on the following

terms:

"1st. The president of the republic of Rio Grande (General Canales) pledges himself to declare the independence of the republic at Rio Grande, and to declare and establish the state and federal constitution of 1824, so soon as he shall have established his head quarters within the limits of the territory claimed by the said republic.

"2nd. That the republic of Rio Grande shall immediately

after the said declaration of independence recognize the independence of Texas.

"3rd. The republic of Texas pledges herself to aid the federalists of Rio Grande in their struggle for independence, directly her independence is recognized by the republic of Rio Grande."

Thus the total dismemberment of Mexico was to have been speedily completed under the specious pretence of a regard for the constitution of 1824. Every petty state in the northern and eastern parts of Mexico was to have been invited to raise the standard of rebellion; and in the event of their being molested by the central republican government of Mexico, it was arranged that they should annex themselves to Texas under the federal system referred to.

While the Texan government was anxiously looking forward to the completion of this their darling object, the dismemberment of Mexico, Colonel Wigginton hastened away to the United States to raise 2,000 men for the military service of Rio Grande. Who was to have taken command of these troops, was not known. Canales being only a village lawyer, could not be their leader. In fact he was nothing more than a puppet in the hands of the Texan government, which had raised him to the position he then held to secure the influence he possessed in the states that were to form the new republic. These states, it was generally believed, would have declared in favour of

federalism, all Mexico would have been convulsed, and the British capital invested in the mines of Durango and Zacatecas, and in commerce, might have been lost, and all British interests in Mexico seriously compromised.

The Texan militia was rapidly organizing, at this period, throughout the republic, for the ostensible purpose of chastising the Comanche Indians, who were concentrating all their force between the rivers San Antonio and Guadalupe, in western Texas, in order to revenge the massacre of their chiefs at San Antonio in the month of April. The Cherokee Indians were also preparing to commence hostility against Texas. The troops on the west of the Brazos were ordered to march against the Kickapoos and other Indian tribes, who were engaged in hostilities with the settlers in Robertson country, about the three forks of the Trinity river; in fact, the affairs of Texas generally assumed a very warlike appearance. Canales, however, no sooner found the prospects of success somewhat doubtful, than he endeavoured to accommodate matters with the government of Mexico. And on the 6th of November, 1840, a convention was signed between General Reyes (commanding part of Arista's army) and Canales, and by the terms, not only was the cause of federalism and all notion of the new republic of Rio Grande abandoned, but Canales and all the Mexicans under him joined General Reyes,

and have since actually made war upon the Texans, (whose duplicity they discovered,) in conjunction with Arista's army.

Part of the Texan and American adventurers who were taken from Texas and the United States were surprised and made prisoners, but the remainder had intimation of the nature of the convention, and fled in all directions back to Texas. Thus ended the first partisan war of the Texans, and so will every other, where the undisciplined hordes invade their neighbours, the sovereigns of the soil they have usurped so ungratefully.