Westward extension, 1841-1850, by George Pierce Garrison.

RUPTURE WITH MEXICO

I99

ernment on the subject were official and reliable,
and sought to justify the attitude of Mexico as follows: "but as it may happen that ambition and
delusion may prevail over public propriety, that
personal views may triumph over sane and just
ideas, and that the vigorous reasoning of Mr. John
Quincy Adams and his co-laborers may be ineffectual, how can it be considered strange and out of
the way that Mexico, under such a supposition,
should announce that she will regard the annexation of Texas as an act of declaration of war?" '
Secretary of State Upshur approved the course of
Thompson, and instructed him that, in case he
were again addressed in such offensive language, he
should demand either a withdrawal of the letter or
a suitable apology.
On November 3, I843, Almonte, the Mexican
minister at Washington, in accordance with the instructions of his government, notified Upshur, in
a communication whose terms were hardly less
offensive than those used by Bocanegra to Thompson, that if "the United States should, in defiance
of good faith and of the principles of justice which
they have constantly proclaimed, commit the unheard-of act of violence (inaudito atentado-the expression [says the official translator] is much stronger
than the translation) of appropriating to themselves
an integrant part of the Mexican territory, the undersigned, in the name of his nation, and now for
I Senate Docs., 28 Cong, I Sess., I., No. I, p. 28.