see us, and brought the welcome intelligence that, through the remonstrances of the United States and British ministers, President Santa Anna had countermanded the order for shooting our men. This evening I requested a friend living in the city to see these ministers, and desire them to call at our prison the next day.

March 17th. This day we were not furnished a [218] morsel to eat, and but for the little private means we had, should have consequently fasted.

The reason the officer of the guard gave for not furnishing our usual twenty-five cents each was, that "he had no money." General Thompson, the United States minister, sent us word that "he thought he could be of more service by not evincing too great anxiety in our behalf, and that everything in his power should be done for us." Though we were thankful for General Thompson's kind feelings, yet we were mortified at his position, which we feared in some measure compromised the dignity of his government. Mr. Packenham, the British minister,16 and suite came to our prison, and met us with the most unostentatious kindness. The representative of the British nation is no small character on any portion of this globe where the needle has ever turned. The colonel of the regiment, who, since the first day of our arrival at Tacubaya, appeared in all the ununiform, gaudy foppery of the Mexican nation, and who paid less attention to us than if we had been so many animals in a menagerie, when he saw the British legation in our prison, stood chapeau in hand, and looked as if he were in a superior presence. Mr. Packenham inquired for myself, and asked "if I desired to see him." I answered that "I did, and wished to make intercession through him for several English subjects, prisoners with us, among whom were Captain Ewin Cameron, Samuel C. Lyon, and others." Mr. Packenham said [219] that "he would do everything in his power for these men, but that he feared much difficulty would interpose in this service; that these men, though they were British subjects, had made their own election in taking up arms against Mexico, and consequently had subjected themselves to all the penalties of the laws of war," &c. I replied, that "by the encouragement of the commercial policy of Great Britain, these men had become sojourners in Texas; that, pursuing trades which their government had encouraged, they had subjected themselves to the laws of Texas, which required all persons, citizens or sojourners, after a certain time, to take up arms in her defence. They had either to forfeit in Texas benefits which had accrued to them by their governmental policy, or submit to the lex loci where they were pursuing their English trades." I cited him the case of Samuel C. Lyon, then present. He was a shipmaster by profession; his father, mother, and family then resided in Liverpool, and were highly respectable; that, through the commercial laws and treaties of his country, he had been for a time in Texas, where he had acquired property and privileges, the fruit of his country's encouragement and his own industry, and that I must believe that there was a high obligation upon that country to protect and shield him; that, had