The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 21, July 1917 - April, 1918 Page: 81

British Correspondence Concerning Texas

mischief, fraught with consequences of the worst description to
all parties concerned, and I felt that I ought not to reject it for
the sake of avoiding the blame which 1 knew would be cast upon
me in the highly probable contingency that has occurred.
Mr Buchanan's strictures do not affect me, for emulating the
plainness with which he has spoken of me in papers that have
found their way before the public, I must really say that in my
estimation he is no more than the player of a chief part in an
unprincipled public juggle, a plot for the spoliation of an un-
offending and weak neighbour, brought to pass mainly by the be-
trayal of certain politicians of their friends and leaders for no
higher detectable interests than their own, and those of land and
stock jobbers, and internal Slave trade dealers; a passage, in fine,
in that systematic practice of delusion and excitement upon the
unreflecting masses of the American people, made drunk with
wordy and senseless projects of aggrandizement, and whooped on
to clamour for measures alike injurious to the honour and well
understood interests of their Country.
Few persons, My Lord, can be better acquainted than myself
with the history of the Annexation of Texas, from its origin to
its accomplishment; and there is no confusion in my understand-
ing between the influences and means which have compassed it,
and the reluctant consent of eminent persons of both the great
parties in the Country who have recently voted for it, in a sense,
no doubt, that further opposition was unavailing, and would only
serve to drive them into private life, at a moment when there is
so much need for their efforts to. avert worse mischief
It cannot be justly imputed to me, if these papers should ever
be submitted to the public, that I am making a general and un-
founded attack upon the American people and their institutions.
Nothing can be farther from my dispositions and intentions. I
have lived more in America than in Europe for the last 30 years
of my life, I have as many friends here as there; I have the firmest
belief in the suitableness of their institutions as they were origin-
ally framed to the circumstances of the case, and to the fitness
of those people for such institutions, and I know that there are
as many reasonable and honourable persons in the United States
as in any other part of the world, proportionably to the population