Sketches of the campaign in northern Mexico : in eighteen hundred forty-six and seven / by an officer of the First Regiment of Ohio volunteers.

250 THE ARMISTICE TERMINATED.
clearly desirable that we should be found in possession of the
the whole country north of the Sierra Madre. And if the
Mexican Congress should refuse, as it did, to enter into negotiations, the possession of Tampico and the establishment
of a new basis of operations on the East would facilitate the
conquest of a peace. Our Cabinet therefore very wisely determined to prosecute the war in the interval that must
elapse before the assembling of the Mexican Congress, with
the utmost vigor, and issued orders for a combined attack
upon Tampico by land and sea. The movement was arrested
by the news of the capitulation of Monterey, at the date of
which General Taylor was not apprized of the changes that
had occurred in the views of his government. The enemy,
however, as we have seen, hastened to abandon the threatened port, Tampico, and it was soon afterward occupied by
the naval force under Commodore Perry.
On the 3d of November, General Taylor was instructed
by his government to terminate the armistice. All the hopes
of peace which he had reasonably entertained were dissipated. On the 6th of November, he sent Major Graham to
notify the Mexican general-in-chief, that the temporary suspension of arms would cease on the 13th, the date at which
the notice was expected to reach San Luis de Potosi. Major
Graham proceeded no further than Salfillo, whence his dispatches were forwarded to Santa Anna by the governor of
Coahuila. The M]exican general in his acknowledgment of
their arrival, thoughtlessly or maliciously insinuated that
the notice was not warranted by the terms of the convention
of Monterey; but added that Taylor might commence hos