American Flag. (Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico), Vol. 2, No. 175, Ed. 1 Wednesday, February 16, 1848 Page: 1 of 4
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long mat it wave o'er. the land of the free and the home of the brave."
Vol. II.
MATAMOROS, FEBRUARY 16, 1848.
No. 175.
Is pu
THE AMERICAN FLAG
,„blished Wednesdays and Satordats, near
corner of Bravo and Abasolo streets, in (he
jjing known as the "Casa de Steambote," by
1, N. FLEESON and J. R. PALMER.
TERMS.
|inscription for One Year, Eight Dollars;
I youths, Four Dollars ; Three Months, Two
nuns AND f,|FTT Cents; Single Copies, One
payable invariably in advance.
Advertisements, not exceeding ten lines, One
,|ur for the first, and Fifty Cents for each subse-
iL insertion; for Three Months, Ten Dollars;
>0f greater length charged in proportion.
HOME.—Er Montcbmert.
There is a land, ofev'ry Jand the pride,
Jjelov'd by Heuv'n o'er all the world beside,
[ Where brighter suns dispense serener light,
i And milder moons emparadise the night;
Aland <if beauty, virtu-, valor, truth,
Time-tutor'd age, and love exalted youth ;
The wand'ring mariner, whose eye explores
The wealthiest isles, the most enchanting shores,
Vie«9 not a renlm so beautiful and fair,
JJor breathes the spirit of a purer air;
Inev'ry clime the magnet of his soul,
Toiich'd by remembrance, trembles to that pole ;
For in this land of Heaven's peculiar grace,
The heritage of nature's noblest race,
There is a spot of earth supremely blest,
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest;
Where ma/i, creation's tyrant, lays aside
JiisKWord and sceptre, pageantry and pride,
While in hi? softcn'd looks benignly blend
'I he sire, the son, the husband, father, friend ;
Here woman reigns—the mother, daughter, wife,
Mrew with fresh flow'rs the narrow way of life;
In the clear Heuv'n of her delightful eye
An anjiel guard of loves and graces lie ;
Around her knees domestic duties meet,
And fire-side pleasures gambol at her feet.
Where shall that land, that spot of land, be found !
Art thou a man ?—a patriot ?—look around ;
0, thou alialt find, how'cr thy footsteps roam,
That/add thy country, and that apot thy home !
|A LETTER FROM HON. J. R. POIN
SETT, ON THE MEXICAN WAR.
more so now; and no scheme of that sort
could have even momentary success, unless
the leaders considered it as the only chance
of opposing us. There exists a strong mon-
archical party, strong in wealth and station—
the Priests, the former aristocracy and the
adherents of Spain. We may drive the num-
bers under their banners. Still the Presi-
dent is wrong: our armed intervention might
bring on us a powerful foreign foe, but could
not prevent the evil; whereas, if we hold
back, my life for it, a monarchy would not
exist in Mexico three years, with fiftv thou-
sand bayonets to sustain it. The people are
republican.
The President says he is convinced that
the best means of bringing the war to an hon-
orable close will be to prosecute it with in-
creased energy and power in the vital parts
of the enemy's country. Now, I am persua-
ded that so long as we continue to prosecute
the war in the interior of Mexico, we shall
have no peace with the nation, and all at-
tempts to makepeace with a faction will place
us in a worse position than open war. I speak
with the authority of a perfect knowledge of
the nature of the country and the character
of the people.
1 was glad to find that the Secretary rejects
the plan of overrunning the whole country,
as too expensive; but I was surprised to per-
ceive that he only estimates the number ol
men it would requite to do this, or to main-
tain our present conquest, at seventy thousand
men for the first, and some thirty-five or forty
thousand for the second. He says nothing of
the annual consumption of men during this
prolonged contest. During the most favora-
ble period of the Peninsular war, carried on
in a country friendly to them, the British for-
ces lost annually sixteen per cent., one-fourth
of whom died of wounds and casualties. In
Mexico we should lose at least twenty per
cent, per annum of regular forces, and at least
forty per cent, of volunteers. I remarked in
the isthmus between the Caspian and Black
! Seas, that the Russian forces required to he
Statesburg, [S. C] Dec. 12. 1848.
My dear Sir—In compliance with your
Irequest, and in conformity with my promise,
have determined to give you very briefly , . , .
I my views on the all engrossing topic of theirecru' entirely tri three years; that is to
day. 1 was detained later than I expected iSc'^' ^ required a renewal of one-thitd eve-
| to be i n Columbia, and have only this moment i rpfar"
■hi the President's Message and the Report:, 7 conquest of that country by Russia af-
I o! the Secretary of W*r, and am surprised l~r s.us '®ssons we ought to profit by. The
p perceive that they persist in recommending **us.alan forc, s overrun the Caucasian coun-
>'icourse of policy which will lead to still fur- lvJ ,n 1*9(>» and received the submission of
ihcr useless expenditure of blood and treasure, ^ PeoPle- Well, in 1807 I passed through
•tid will finally have to be abandoned. With ilhfi ," of,lhe c0l,nt|;y. whlch had been gar-
I ifin reasoning* on the subject of the acquisition i ns0ned w,th twc?ly thousand men for eleven
Mterritory I have nothing- to do, especially >'earS' ^ cost of bf,vveen sixty and seventy
uthe President seems to think Congress jthousand ™en' or S1X <ir SPV™ th°usand men
pledged to these conquests. I can only ex-! aye,ar" At tharl tlme,t vJas necessary to watt
pm my regret and my firm conviction that lhe of a lra,n fro/n PuSt t0 Post> a
I these tei ritoria I acquisitions will not add to
possession of our new territory and might dis-
miss the volunteer force.
To succeed in levying military eontribu-
tionsthe President speaks of, and provisioning
the army by force, the troops must be very
much increased. It requires a very large
force to procure supplies without paying for
them. They can only be gathered by formi-
dable detachments, arid our army never has
been and never will be sufficiently numer-
ous to separate so many men from the main
body.
I have given you my opinions very hur-
riedly, for it appears to me there is little time
to lose in settling the course to be pursued.—
We can at this period withdraw our forces
without dishonor, nay such an act would ele-
vate us in the estimation of the world. The
slightest reverse—a threat of foreign interven-
tion—might render such an act difficult, if not
impracticable. Before our troops evacuate
the, Mexican territory that people ought to be
told what we intend to do. It is barely pos-
sible that they might be disposed to peace up-
on witnessing such a movement.
With regard to the details of the defence of
the line—not the line defence—they can be
determined very easily, and Ithink we might
be certain of remaining unmolested for twenty
years, and forever, with such precautions as
might be taken at little cost
With great respect and regard, I am, my
dear sir, yours truly,
J. R. POINSETT.
Hon. A. P. Butler, U. S. Senate, Wash-
ington.
of all who cherished the memory of him to
whose fame her name was wedded. She dies,
and her name fills a paragraph. It will ne-
ver fill another.
uiir strength or prosperity.
The recommendation that most seriously
sl'-trms me is contained in the paragraph
"here the President says there can be no
doubt that there exists a peace party in Mexi-
co, and that it may become expedient for our
ci)mrnariding generals to give assurances of
protection to such a party; in short, to create
a party, make peace with it, and guarantee it
m the possession of power. Nothing can be , . ,
"torechimerical; nothing could be more in-j 1SC)P lne troop&.
sfcurethan the execution of such a project!
lv?fe it practicable. Such a party would bear
"o proportion to the nation, and the members
°; it would require to be protected from pub-
lc indignation and vengeance for long years
'°conie, by a foice not less formidable than
h|i>t now in the country, without the chance
anJ' indemnity, or the power of levying
1 ontributions of any sort. If the peace gov-
"r'itnent should agree to pay and subsist their
protectors, they must, from the nature of
. of firesides, and the death ol his second wife,
it was unsafe to move w ith less than two pie- the wife beloved, loved before she was known,
ces of artillery and a full company of infantry, seized before she was wedded, and magnified
I hi? state^ of things continued until 1940. with all the glory of a French stage mana-t
when the Caucasians organized a powerful ger, will certainly go to the hearts of many
opposition to theii conquerors, and up to the sympathising and soli souled sentimentalists,
present day have contended against them with [VIa i ie Louise was the dau hter of Francis
advantage, lhe Caucasus does not contain H,Emperor of Austria, and wasborn in 1791.
more than a million and a half of inhabitants; g^e was descended from a long line of ances-
ihe Russian empire not less than sixty mil-jtors, a few of whom had ordinary sense and
lions. 1 he Caucasians have no regular ar- ( orduiarv honor. She was herself accom-
The Death oj Marie Louise.—There is
nothing special in this event, in the passage
of a stupid, selfish and useless woman from
this life to another, that should excite public
interest; but the death of Marie Louise will
do so. The splendid incidents of her bridal
with the foremost man of all the world, the
results of that bridal, and the tragic acts of the
dreadful drama that followed, have attached
an interest to her name and life of which she
was scarcely worthy. The career of great
captains and conquerors, seems to have a dan-
gerous captivation for republics and we may'
well lament that the delusion is so general
and so strong. The heroes of the battle field
are always better known than those of the
study. Napoleon's career is more familiarly
known in this country than the studies of
Bacon; and the poisoned trail of his example
is over many a mirid that should ba devoted
to better aspirations. The details of his do-
mestic life have been made by popular publi-
cations, subjects of debate around thousands
my; the Emperor six hundred thousand wel
save
us the
|j.|no8> lail to do either. Pray,
''^grace of attempting such an intervention.
Ip attempt might lead to an intervention of
1 'Herein sort, that would
successful.
possibly prove
The President is npprehen
I plished, fair and inoffensive. The victorious
Napoleon bought her, as the consideration of
Both the President and the Secretary build peace from her father, the vanquished Ernpe-
up a system of line defence, as it is called | ror; he divorced, against all laws, human
which they easily overthrow, because no mil and divine, his wife Josephine, and banishing
itary man would suggest such an anomaly.— his first consort to Malmaison, at which it is
They suppose a frontier can only be defend-^ said he made weekly visits, introduced his
ed by a chain of posts bordering on the line; Austrian bride at the Tuilleries. Her ca-
whereas it is best secured by strong interior reer was a brief but most brilliant one. Eve-
defences. But 1 do not intend to intrude my J ry honor was paid her; and the birth of her
opinion on military matters. Settle what j son, announced by the discharge of an hun-
territory you intend to claim, and tell Mexico dred cannons, seemed to crown the glory of: soarc'1 ,rom hind known to be continent,
the Empress of the greatest monarch of mo-juhere every footstep will be so much good
Anecdote of Gen. Quitman.—The Wash-
ington correspondent of the Tioga,(Pa.) Ea-
gle relates an anecdote of General Quitman,
alike honorable to the author and subject of
it. We have not before seen it in print, and
it may interest some of our readers:
"I was within a mile of Mexico," he said,
"and we had hard fighting. I took out my
glass to reconnoitre. The cannon of the ene-
my wore belching out fire and smoke, and I
must admit 1 felt for a moment a little tick-
lish. Shields was at my side, and it was
there he was wounded in the arm while I
was talking to him. The volunteers were all
around me. Suddenly one of them fell near
my feet. The poor fellow had been shet
down, a ball struck him on the leg, and there
he lay bleeding. 1 ordered him to be taken
to the surgeon. He was carried about six
feet from me. Turning to where he lay, I
saw him reaching out for his musket; he
took hold of it by the bayonet, and with some
difficulty he drew it to him. 1 turned aside
to give an order; and when I again observed
the man, he had kis musket drawn to his
shoulder—he was in a sitting posture—and
bang went his gun. He fired at the enemy.
'Haven't you got enough of fighting yet?' I
asked. He smiled, and remarked—'General
I can't help it.1 No. he couldn't help it.—
These are the kind of boys that win our bat-
tles, sir. When I returned to New OrleanB,
1 saw this soldier; he walked a little lame,
and had nearly recovered from the effect of
his wound. This one circumstance, among
others has convinced me that our people ne-
ver can be conquered."
Sir John Fran klip's A rctic Expedition.—
The following is from a late English paper;
The last whaler has arrived, and Sir John
Franklin and his 1*25 followers are shut up
in the Arctic regions for a third winter. To
save them from a fouith, when, in addition to
scurvy (that dreadful scourge to seamen] they
will have to contend with starvation and all
its horrors, Dr. King has offered his services
to Earl Grey to journey over land to the wes-
tern land of North Somerset [in the neigh-
borhood of which spot lies all the difficulty
which has baffled all our attempts in ships for
three centuries and a half] in search of this
gallant parly. Dr King proposes to take
the same route he took in search of Sir John
Ross in 1^33-35. An attempt to reach the
western land of North Somerset in ships
would be attended with these difficulties: 1.
Barrow's Strait was impassable in 1832; it
may be impassable in 1848. 2. 'J'he search
in ships would be using the same means
which have brought the lost expedition into
their difficulty ; the relief party may there-
fore become a party in distress. 3. The land
that is made may be of doubtful character,
the searching party at the end of the summer,
with the close of which every soul of the lost
expedition, will have perished, may find they
have been tracing an island many miles dis-
tant from the western land of North Somer-
set, or navigating a deep bay, as Kotzebue
navigated the sound named after him, and as
Franklin navigated the sea called Melville
Sound. The plan which Dr. King has pro-
posed is to reach the Polar sea across the con-
tinent of America, and thus proceed on his
rotn
you intend to keep it. She will bluster and
protest, but never attack you Her leaders
will have too much at stake to venture so far
from the capital. She will have no means to
equip armies and maintain them on long
against
em. work done for the rescue of the 126 gallant
men, and for the furtherance of geographical
dern times. He left her. to arm
battled Europe, and never saw her or her son
again. That Napoleon played well, before!and nalural historical knowledge,
witnesses, the part of a husband and lover, is j In the N. Y. Commercial Advertiser
marches and distant campaigns; and I hazard 1 proved by his exclamation, in the moment of! find ihe subjoined paragraph
^»l t .l . i • • r i .1 .. rt ! -
we
Slve of foreign interference first in Califor- nothing in saying that two or three strong his wife's extremest
flirt _ 1 ' I _ . . V. « 1. . ' . » ! . .. 1 • ill /» i •
danger—"Sanvez ma \
rested That his'
Q'Mnd next in the establishment of a monar- Places.in ,he interior of our line would keep\femme. ' peu nimporte le
y in Mexico. There is not the slighest! 'hem incheckfor half a century, and in less) devotion, the devotion of the greatest man,
r'sk of the former, and if the Mexican people j l'me VVf> m'ght buy a t"le, if thought nocessa- was not appreciated, was demonstrated by her
left to themselves, no chance of the latter. < By adopting this p'an, peace would ■ ready submission to his enemies, and her mar-
!bey were so entirely lenublican in 1822 I c°me at last with present indemnity, and, in-: riage with another. She became the mother!
I did t ...... . . -
i he sloop of war Plover has been ordered
in search of Sir John Franklin and his party,
and was to sail from Sherness on the 1st Jan-
uary.
entirely lepublican in
not hesitate confidently to foretell ste, °'
raising
o
A paper out west, in speaking of an ora-
J .. , _ thirty thousand men. you of a large family of children; the Dutchess'tor out that way, said that he spoke an hour
owafall of Iturbide. They are much j would have troops enough to keep peaceab!e:of a nominal principality; and the reproach jand a half, and was sensible to the last."
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Fleeson, Isaac Neville & Palmer, J. R. American Flag. (Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico), Vol. 2, No. 175, Ed. 1 Wednesday, February 16, 1848, newspaper, February 16, 1848; Matamoros, Mexico. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth478123/m1/1/: accessed June 20, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Abilene Library Consortium.