CHAPTER II
Aaron Burr — The McGregor and his kingdom — Mina's expedition and fate — The Alamo massacre — Travis, Bowie, and Crockett — The tragedy of Goliad — Houston and Santa Ana — Victory of San Jacinto — The Santa Fe and Mier expeditions.
While Miranda's ambitious schemes were drawing the notice of the State department towards the seaboard, a more serious filibustering scheme was quietly hatching in another quarter, in the brain of one of the boldest and ablest adventurers known to American history. The imperial crown of the Montezumas was the prize for which an ex-vice-president of the United States risked fame, fortune, everything—and lost! The story of Aaron Burr is a matter of familiar history. His demoralized forces surrendered at Bayou Pierre, on the Mississippi, on January 17, 1807. Acquitted of the charge of treason, for which he was tried, but condemned by the unanimous opinion of his contemporaries, the sober judgment of history must pause before endorsing either verdict. The relations of Spain and the United States were in a hopelessly tangled state. Burr proposed to settle the disputed question of territorial rights by conquering the whole of Spanish North America, a scheme which his countrymen might not have severely rebuked or discouraged; but, unfortunately for his fame, Burr's ambition was personal and selfish. He would conquer, but not for his country's sake—a distinction, even then, sufficient to constitute a grave offence against the sovereign people.
What are now known as the Gulf States—Florida, Louisiana, and Texas—were then held under the colonial sway of Spain. The first and second became absorbed by purchase. Texas, as early as 1812, had begun to invite the notice of the restless filibustering element, but its more immediate importance lay in its convenience as a field of operations for the Mexican revolutionists. Hidalgo and his compatriots unfurled the standard of independence in September, 1810. Their first attempt to enlist outside aid was made six months later, when Bernardo Guttierez de Lara, a native Mexican, was sent as a commissioner to Washington to invoke recognition for the new Republic. His mission failing, Guttierez went to New Orleans and began recruiting adventurers, with such success that he was able in February, 1812, to lead a force of 450 men across the border into Texas.
His success was brilliant from the outset; and, in spite of some serious reverses, he succeeded in making himself master of Leon and Texas. Then came into play the unfailing ally of tyranny, corruption. Alvarez de Toledo, who had been appointed the successor of Guttierez as commissioner to Washington, made use of his position to negotiate with the Spanish minister for the betrayal of his compatriot. Returning to Texas, he incited mutiny among the troops of Guttierez, who deposed their commander and appointed Alvarez to succeed him. Personal ambition, rather than treason to his country, must have been the motive influencing the latter; for when the Royalist general, Arredondo, marched with an overwhelming force against the patriots at San Antonio de Bexar, Alvarez boldly gave him battle. Guttierez, with noble patriotism, fought in the ranks of his late command and did not survive the defeat. His heroic devotion was imitated on the same spot by Barrett Travis, twenty-two years afterwards. The defeat and death of Guttierez occurred on March 15, 1814.
Among the Americans who took service under Guttierez was Augustus W. Magee, of Massachusetts, who laid down his commission as a lieutenant in the United States army to join the filibusters. His fate was peculiar. After several successes he found himself, as he supposed, so beset by Governor Salcedo that he made terms for the surrender of himself and followers and their transportation to the United States. But the men boldly refused to abide by the timid measures of their leader, disavowed the contract, and actually assailed and routed the enemy, who was awaiting their surrender. Magee, overcome with shame at the success of those whom he had proved himself unworthy to lead, blew out his brains on the night of the victory.
Reuben Kemper, of Virginia, was another of the American adventurers of a widely different type. He is described as a man of gigantic proportions, with a voice and a heart to match his stalwart frame, and a profanity that attracted attention even on that Homeric field. As early as 1808 he made an attempt to capture Baton Rouge, and was kidnapped for his pains by the Spaniards, who would have cut short his career summarily but for the intervention of the United States commander at Pointe Coupée. On attaining his liberty, Kemper vowed to devote his life to the extirpation of Spanish rule in America. In 1812 he led an abortive attempt to capture Mobile, but was more successful on receiving from Guttierez the command of six hundred Americans with whom he gained several victories. Dissensions in the patriot ranks at last sent him home in disgust. He afterwards served with distinction under Jackson at New Orleans, and survived to witness the final extinction of Spanish rule on the American continent.
About this time occurred, like a burlesque injected into a tragedy, the extraordinary episode of "Citizen Gregor McGregor", or Sir George McGregor, which is said to have been his legitimate title in his native Scotland, who claimed dominion over Florida, then a Spanish possession. McGregor was the wearer of many titles, among them those of "Brigadier General of the Armies of the United Provinces of New Granada and Venezuela, and General-in-Chief of the armies of the Two Floridas, Commissioned by the Supreme Directors of Mexico and South America, and Cacique of Poyais, the last-named having been conferred by His Majesty George Frederick Augustus, King of the Mosquito Coast." Incidentally he claimed to be chief of the clan Alpin, or Gregor, of Scotland. Mr. Alfred M. Williams, author of the admirable "Life of General Houston," says of The McGregor:
He had taken a part in the South American revolution, and married a woman who was, or professed to be, a sister of Simon Bolivar. Failing to win fortune in South America, "Gen." McGregor sailed away in a small schooner which he had obtained possession of, and appeared in Baltimore in the winter of 1817. There, without attracting any particular attention from the authorities, he enlisted a small number of men for the conquest of Florida, and landed on Amelia Island in June, where he issued a proclamation suitable to his titles of distinction, and promised "to plant the Green Cross of Florida on the proud walls of St. Augustine." Whatever is to be said of the other Filibusters, they were not blatherskites and charlatans, and of this class Gregor McGregor most distinctly was. Failing to gather any recruits to his standard, McGregor was persuaded by one Woodbine, an English adventurer, who figured a good deal in the troubles which led to Jackson's summary execution of Arbuthnot and Ambrister, to sail for New Providence, where a British regiment had recently been disbanded, and where, as in former years, there was abundance of material in the shape of broken men and the waifs and strays of adventure, in the hope of enlisting a force, to be joined by one of 1500 Indians under Woodbine for the conquest of Florida. McGregor sailed for New Providence, but probably impressed with the idea that the conquest of Florida would require something more than a proclamation, determined "to arrange his private affairs," which it will be seen, that he subsequently did to his great advantage. McGregor's Filibuster expedition in Florida did not quite end with the withdrawal of the leader to attend to his private affairs. One Commodore Aury of the Mexican Liberal forces, appeared on the scene with some small vessels and a motley crew of one hundred and fifty men, made up, as usual, of land and water pirates, refugees and adventurers of every shade of color and nationality, and set up a provisional Government, fortified Fernandina and endeavored, without success, to get together a Legislature representing the people of Florida. He was attacked at Fernandina by the miserable, half mulatto, Spanish troops from St. Augustine, and beat them off without much difficulty. But Aury's troubles were more internal than external. Part of the Filibusters were sincerely desirous of driving out the Spaniards and setting up a free Government in Florida, as was Aury himself, but the majority were simply desirous of making Fernandina a smuggling and piratical headquarters, as Barataria Bay was, and an entrepot for landing slave cargoes from Africa. They quarrelled and fought among themselves, and, in the meantime, had made themselves such a pest and nuisance to American commerce, by piracy and wrecking, and by stealing as well as selling slaves, that President Monroe, probably also foreseeing that Florida would soon fall into the lap of the United States, sent a land and naval force to demand the surrender of Fernandina, which was abandoned by the Filibusters early in the winter of 1818 and turned over to the Spanish authorities. But in the meantime Sir Gregor McGregor had conceived the safer and more profitable idea of founding a kingdom by colonization, rather than by conquest. In 1822 he made his appearance in Edinburgh and announced that he had become the proprietor, by a grant from His Majesty, the King of the Mosquitos, of an immense and valuable territory on the banks of the Black river, which possessed all the advantages of the Garden of Eden in the way of climate, soil and natural productiveness, and which only wanted settlers to add thereto the luxuries, with none of the labors, of civilization. This delectable country was named Poyais, and he himself was the Cacique thereof, a title, which, so to speak, reeked with barbaric richness and grandeur. He opened subscription books to the amount of two hundred thousand pounds, the greater proportion of which was actually paid in. In the meantime he transacted business in a regal fashion, occupying a town house in the fashionable quarter, besides a villa in the country, to which he occasionally retired when fatigued by the affairs of State. He appointed a full set of Government officers, including a Lord Chancellor, but himself, it is to be presumed, retaining the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, and a military staff, clad in gorgeous green uniforms. He also established an order of knighthood, and, like other wise monarchs, had his historiographer and poet. The former produced a book dedicated to His Highness the Cacique of Poyais, entitled "Sketch of the Mosquito Shore, Including the Territory of Poyais; Description of the Country, with Some Information as to its Productions, the Best Mode of Culture, etc.; Chiefly Intended for the Use of Settlers. By Thomas Strangeways, K.G.C., Captain First Native Poyais Infantry, and Aid-de-Camp to His Highness Cacique of Poyais," in which the healthfulness and richness of the country were set forth with all the force of an untrammeled imagination; and the poet, a female relative of the Cacique, produced a popular song entitled "The Poyais Emigrant," in which love and lucre were attractively blended:
"Through smiling vales, 'neath lofty hills,