Jan., 1848, 5-14. So. Qtrly. Review, July, 1852, pp. 114-5. Republicano, May 11. 181Buchanan to Donelson, Jan. 29. Prieto, Mems., 236. 364Worth to S., July 29; to Marcy, Oct. 30. 221Hill, diary. S. Anna, Detall, 16. S. Anna, Mi Historia, 74. 86Relaciones, circular, Sept. 4. and from 76 the following (and many others). Cosío, Sept. 6. J. Y. Gutiérrez, Sept. 2. To Herrera, Aug. 25. To Bravo, Aug. 31. To comte. gen. Mexico, Sept. 3. To Canalizo, Aug. 12. To comte gen. Querétaro, Sept. 4. Gov. Michoacán, Sept. 3. Alvarez to Olaguíbel, Oct. 30. To Alvarez, Aug. 21.
Santa Anna said in his manifesto: "A perpetual war is an absurdity; because war is a calamity, and the instinct of self-preservation, which is even stronger and more powerful in nations than in individuals, recommends that no means whatever should be omitted that may lead to an advantageous arrangement. To adopt this course the constitution gives me competent authority. Consecrated to interests so noble and highly privileged, it is my duty to maintain at all cost the respect and reverence due to the supreme authority with which I am invested . . . I will be yet more explicit: sedition and attempts at subverting the government shall be exemplarily punished" (Sen. 52; 30, 1, p. 250).
(Trist's "vague remark") Ibid., 253.
The Mexican commissioners were instructed (Sen. 52; 30, 1, pp. 314, 369-71) to draw Trist into discussions that not only would have given them opportunities to create awkward dialectic situations, as Rejón and others had done with reference to Texas, but might have excited fresh discord in the United States regarding our treatment of Mexico. For example, they were to ask the motives and aims of the war, and whether the United States based its expectations upon force or upon friendly negotiation. The ground was taken that since Mexico was now ready to give up Texas, all reason for the war had ceased to exist (as if the fighting that had already occurred, its loss of life, triumphs and expenses, signified nothing]. It was urged that since no title except to Texas had been claimed by the United States, we could continue the war only for the odious sake of conquest or the unheard-of purpose to punish Mexico because she was unwilling to sell her lands and her people (see Roa Bárcena, Recuerdos, 391, 400-1, 588, note 3).
In justification of his plan to extend the armistice, Trist pointed out that the American sick and wounded would recover, the rainy reason end, the inundations diminish, the roads improve and the temperature fall (Sen. 52; 30, 1, p. 259). Ripley, on the other hand, asserts (op. cit. ii, 350) that the Americans would have been "dependent upon the good faith of the Mexicans for all of the conveniences and many of the necessaries of life," and, at the end of forty-five days, after living in unhealthy villages, would hardly have been fit to act. But had Santa Anna accepted Trist's proposal he would have done so with the strong expectation of peace and American ass stance, and hence would have treated our army well; and Tacubaya, 8S. Angel and S. Agustin were not only silubrious but delightful in comparison with the capital, and free from its temptations. With reference to Trist's departing from his instructions by proposing to refer a point back to Washington, it is interesting to recall Napoleon's dictum (which bears also on Scott's action supra regarding the sealed despatch): "A general-in-chief cannot exonerate himself from responsibility for his faults by pleading an order of his sovereign or the minister, when the individual from whom it proceeds is at a distance from
