3rd. The limits and other conditions shall be matter of arrangement by final treaty.
4th. That Texas should be willing to remit disputed points concerning territory and other matters to the arbitration of umpires.
These spiteful stipulations, evidently aimed against the United States, and bearing the marks of their European parentage, suited the taste of Mexico precisely. Her congress, therefore, at once deemed it advisable to entertain the Texan proposals, and to proceed to the celebration of a treaty. But when the Baron de Cyprey announced this assent to the president of Texas, on the 20th of May, it was already too late for the success of European diplomacy. Our congress had passed the joint-resolution, our president had approved it, and our minister, Mr. Donelson, was in Texas preparing the cabinet to act favorably upon our propositions. Accordingly when Mr. Elliott returned in June to Texas in a French corvette, the public mind was already manifesting its anxiety to accede to our liberal offers, which were finally sanctioned by the Texan convention on the 4th of July, 1845.
Had the resolution for annexation not been adopted at the preceding session of congress, the pretensions of Mexico, instead of being lowered, would have been raised still higher than they were on the receipt of the propositions from President Jones. The mediatorial powers of Mr. Elliott would, in all probability, have been employed in negotiating truces and treaties until the foundation was laid for the operation of those peaceful means by which Lord Aberdeen declared it his intention to promote his philanthropic views. "Abandoned by the United States, oppressed by debt, and wearied by the increasing burthens and privations of war, Texas would have been at the mercy of Britain, and her statesmen would have accepted almost any terms to secure independence and peace."[63]
FOOTNOTES:
[55] Senate doc. No. 341, 28th cong. 1st sess. p. 95.
[56] Senate doc. No. 1, 28th cong. 2d sess. p. 53.
[57] General Almonté, the Mexican envoy, in a conversation in New York, confessed to the writer, in the spring of 1843, that Texas was lost to Mexico, but that all then desired by his countrymen was to save the point of honor before they acknowledged its independence.
[58] Mexico as it was and as it is, 4th Ed. Letter XXV. p. 367.
[59] Id. page 382.