ENGLAND AND MEXICO II7 



The ■ relations between Ward and Poinsett during the summer of 

 1825, and after, would make an interesting study, and one for which 

 materials he ready to the hand of the worker. In the manuscripts 

 of the Foreign Office are preserved the original letters of the British 

 agent, while the fourteen foho volumes of the papers of Joel R. Poin- 

 sett which are in the library of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania 

 have hardly been even touched. Yet in these papers is to be found 

 the detailed story of the struggle between British and American influ- 

 ence in Mexico. Both of the competitors emerged from the contest 

 with high opinions of the abihties of their respective opponents. 



During the struggle of 1825 the British agent became further con- 

 vinced of the inevitable conflict between Mexico and the United States 

 along the Rio Grande, and his despatches are truer than most historical 

 prophecies. 



"The treaty," he writes to Canning, on the 6th of September, 1825,' 

 "between the United States and this country, advances but slowly, 

 though I am at a loss to understand, in what the cause of the delay 

 consists .... while the Mexicans are .... jealous in guarding 

 against encroachments in the shape of a treaty, they are suffering, 

 on the other hand, by an absurd mixture of negligence, & weakness, 

 the whole disputed territory, and an immense tract of country beyond 

 it, to be quietly taken possession of by the very men, whose claim to 

 it, they are resisting here: — you will perceive Sir, by a reference to 

 the Map, that the whole of the lands between the rivers Sabine and 

 Brazos, have been granted away to American Settlers, and that the 

 tide of emigration is settHng very fast in the direction of the Rio Bravo. 

 These grants have been made by the provincial Government of Texas, 

 and retailed by the Original speculators to the hordes of their country- 

 men, which have already arrived there, at a moderate price of half a 

 dollar an acre, by which however they have cleared 150 per cent, profit. 

 On the most moderate computation, six hundred North American 

 famihes are already estabhshed in Texas; their numbers are increas- 

 ing daily, and though they nominally recognize the authority of the 

 Mexican Government, a very little time will enable them, to set at 



■ Ward to Canning, September 6, 1825, Foreign OfFce MSS., Mexico, XI\'. 



