Our blood we’ll freely shed;
No groan will ’scape the dying,
Seeing thee o’er his head.
Up with your banner, Freedom!
Let us return to Sam Houston. His life of cyclone passions and whirling change—a white boy turned Indian, then hero of a war against the redskins; lawyer, commander-in-chief and governor of a state, a drunken savage, a broken man begging a job at Washington, an obscure conspirator in Texas—had made him leader of the liberators.
The fall of the Alamo filled the Texans with fury, but when that was followed by the awful massacre of Goliad they went raving mad. Houston, their leader, waited for reinforcements until his men wanted to murder him, but when he marched it was to San Jacinto where, with eight hundred Texans, he scattered one thousand six hundred Mexicans, and captured Santa Anna. He was proclaimed president of the Lone Star republic, which is now the largest star in the American constellation.
XLIV
A. D. 1793 ALEXANDER MACKENZIE
The very greatest events in human annals are those which the historian forgets to mention. Now for example, in 1638 Louis XIV was born; the Scots set up their solemn league and covenant; the Turks romped into poor old Bagdad and wiped out thirty thousand Persians; Van Tromp, the Dutchman, whopped a Spanish fleet; the English founded Madras, the corner-stone of our Indian empire; but the real event of the year, the greatest event of the seventeenth century, was the hat act passed by the British parliament. Hatters were forbidden to make any hats except of beaver felt. Henceforth, for two centuries, slouch hats, cocked hats, top hats, all sorts of hats, were to be made of beaver fur felt, down to the flat brimmed Stetson hat, which was borrowed from the cowboys by the Northwest Mounted Police, adopted by the Irregular Horse of the Empire, and finally copied in rabbit for the Boy Scouts. The hatter must buy beaver, no matter what the cost, so Europe was stripped to the last pelt. Then far away to east and west the hunters and trappers explored from valley to valley. The traders followed, building forts where they dealt with the hunters and trappers, exchanging powder and shot, traps and provisions, for furs at so much a “castor” or beaver skin, and skins were used for money, instead of gold. Then came the settlers to fill the discovered lands, soldiers to guard them from attack by savages, judges and hangmen, flag and empire.
The Russian fur trade passed the Ural Hills, explored Siberia and crossed to Russian America.
Westward the French and British fur trade opened up the length and breadth of North America.