Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/815

I Jackson and the Texas Revolution 805 replied to the grand jury's request for information that it was not a breach of the law to hold meetings in New York and appoint committees '" to provide means and make collections for the pur- pose of enabling the inhabitants of Texas to engage in a civil war with the sovereignty of Mexico, now at peace with the United States ". The law applied, said the court, only to military expe- ditions .carried on from the United States, and donations were in no sense a " beginning or setting on foot or providing the means for " a military expedition from the United States.^ It did not apply to individuals either, and was evaded by the contention that the volunteers were emigrating to Texas as individual citizens. An editorial in the Kciv Orleans Commercial Bulletin declared that it did not mean " to prevent any citizen from taking passage in any merchant vessel, to go anyzi.'liere and with an intent, and with arms and munitions of war ".- In the face of popular opinion and the defects of the law it was little enough, therefore, that the govern- ment could do. In this connection should be mentioned the President's endorse- ment on a letter from Stephen F. Austin. Austin, with William H. Wharton and Branch T. Archer, had been appointed by the pro- visional government of Texas to negotiate loans and otherwise enlist sympathy in the United States. The commissioners were not very successful in obtaining money, and as news continued to reach them of the desperate situation in Texas Austin became frantic. On April 15, 1836, less than a week before the battle of San Jacinto, he addressed a letter to " Andrew Jackson, Martin 'an Buren, Richard AI. Johnson, John Forsyth. Lewis Cass, T. H. Ben- ton, and to any member of the Cabinet or Congress of all parties and all sections of the United States ". In it he begged that Texas be given a share in the distribution of the surplus revenue of the United States. General Jackson endorsed this : " The writer did not reflect that we have a treaty with Mexico, and our national faith is pledged to support it. The fcxans before they took the step to declare themselves Independent which has aroused all Mexico against them ought to have pondered well — it was a rash and prema- ture act, our neutrality must be faithfully maintained."^ '25 Cong., 2 sess., House Doc, No. 74, Vol. III., pp. 5-8. ■New Orleans Commercial Bulletin. November 25, 1835. 3 Jackson MSS. A copy of the letter without the endorsement can be found in the .Austin Papers, and it is printed in Raines, A Year Book for Texas. II. 435-436- In July, 1836, P. W. Grayson and James Collinsworth presented themselves as agents of the Te.xas government, but Forsyth told them that he could not deal with them officially, since their credentials lacked the seal of their govern-