missioners, Bernardo Couto, Miguel Atristain, and Luis G. Cuevas, a treaty was finally concluded and signed by them at Guadalupe Hidalgo,[1] on the 2d of February, 1848, consisting of twenty-three articles, and an additional and secret one extending the term stipulated for the exchange of ratifications. The chief stipulations embraced in the treaty were those contained in articles 5, 6, 12, 13, and 14.
Article 5 fixes the future boundaries between the two republics, and under it Mexico ceded to the United States Texas, New Mexico with all the territory then belonging to it, and Alta California. The limit between the latter and Baja California was made a straight line drawn from the middle of the Rio Gila, where it unites with the Colorado, to a point on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, distant one marine league due south of the southernmost point of the port of San Diego, according to Pantoja's map of 1782. The article also stipulates for the future running of the boundary line between the two nations. Article 6 gives the United States and their citizens a free and uninterrupted passage by the gulf of California and by the river Colorado, below its confluence with the Gila, to and from their possessions north of the boundary line defined in the preceding article. Article 12 stipulates that the United States shall pay Mexico, in consideration of the extension of boundaries acquired by the former, fifteen million dollars, and
- ↑ It has been stated that Trist himself chose the place, because of the veneration felt for it by the Mexicans, Roa Bárcena, Recuerdos, 607.
an armistice and cessation of arms should be entered into. Trist laid it before Gen. Scott, but the latter for good reasons would not take upon himself the responsibility of granting a second armistice till a treaty had become a fact. This was verbally made known by Trist to the commissioners of Mexico, whose government then, after due consideration, resolved to secure an arrangement of the questions at issue between the two countries, by secret negotiations, and without an armistice, leaving the latter to be entered into when the arrangement should have been completed. Couto, one of the Mexican commissioners, wrote Peña on the 3d of Dec. that Scott, though unwilling to formally agree to a cessation of arms, promised not to prosecute hostilities. He fulfilled his promise, contenting himself with the occupation of two or three new places, when he might, had he chosen, have freely invaded the central states. Roa Bárcena, Recuerdos, 590-1; Apunt. Hist. Guerra, 392.
