Trist was prepared to stimulate his colleagues with news that a sentiment in favor of pushing the war through without delay had now become pronounced in the United States. At the same time his letter of September 7 provided them with a most convenient position, for it maintained that all the districts now held by American troops were ours by right of conquest, and that by accepting our terms Mexico, instead of selling lands and population, would recover a large amount of both. He gave them, too, an agreeable surprise by proposing substantially the same terms as during the armistice.[10]
They for their part knew California and all of Texas were lost; but their instructions were exacting, and they struggled for all conceivable advantages. Foreign arbitration and a European guaranty of the boundary were promptly demanded, and were as promptly refused. It was proposed that on the signing of the treaty all American forces in the country should retire to within fifty leagues of the coast; but this and other unreasonable conditions met the same fate. Anticipating sharp and captious criticism from opposing lawyers in Congress, the Mexicans devoted the most wearisome care to phraseology. Cordiality prevailed, however. Trist’s good-will, self-sacrifice and courtesy received full recognition, and he seems to have been rather intimate with Couto, the ablest of his colleagues. Doyle and Thornton, though always respecting the line of strict neutrality, assisted materially in removing difficulties.[10]
Trist felt intensely anxious to save time, and for good reasons. Orders might arrive any day—and eventually did arrive—making it absolutely impossible for him to act as an American representative. Scott was placed by his orders under a military obligation to drive the government from Querétaro, and though he granted a de facto truce, thinly disguised by occupying a few places and intimating a desire for new instructions, a positive despatch might at any hour end that state of things.[11]
Yet day after day passed. The Mexican government and commissioners felt obliged to stick at everything and to confer often by letter. January 8 Anaya’s term expired by limitation; and, as Congress had not assembled, his predecessor became once more the provisional executive. Four days later an abortive insurrection at San Luis Potosí frightened the timid Peña nearly out of his wits, for it seemed like the prologue of a revolution, and he demanded that before signing a treaty he should have sufficient American funds to provide adequate support against malcontents; but at length his commissioners, insisting that such a proposal would be indecorous, eliminated this difficulty. Finally the government stopped short at the financial consideration. It asked for thirty millions, and our commissioner, in view of the expenses already caused by the protraction of the war, would give but fifteen. On the twenty-ninth of January, therefore, Trist, in very considerate but very positive language, officially declared the negotiation ended.[11]
A TREATY SIGNED
By arrangement, however, Doyle informed the Mexican commissioners that enough time to communicate once more with Querétaro would be given. Through the same channel they received a hint from Scott, that he would protect the authorities against the dreaded revolution, should a treaty be signed, but would otherwise have to dislodge the government, and thenceforth hunt it like a deer on the mountain. Doyle talked with British directness and good sense. The commissioners brought all this pressure to bear on their government. It yielded; and, on the second of February, at the suburb of Guadalupe Hidalgo, seat of the most venerated shrine in Mexico, in the profound secrecy that had shrouded all these negotiations, the treaty was at last signed.[12]
By its terms Mexico appeared to sacrifice, independently of Texas, an immense area; but she really suffered little, for she had no grip—and deserved to have none—upon California and New Mexico. Indeed she had found those distant regions merely embarrassing. Nor did she really cede any territory. As Trist contended and our Supreme Court has in effect decided, the only cession was that made by the United States in surrendering districts then in our hands. Our real title was conquest—conquest from those who had taken the country by conquest from its conquerors. What Mexico granted us was peace and an acknowledgement of our title. In return we gave her not only peace, which meant vastly more to Mexico than to us, but extensive lands, the renunciation of all American claims antedating the treaty, and fifteen million dollars in money—a wealth of gold that her treasury had never seen before. On both sides the treaty conferred benefits; on our part it was magnanimous; and to settle the matter in this way gave the United States a feeling of satisfaction worth all it cost.[13]
TERRITORY ACQUIRED FROM MEXICO