Governor Shannon did not despair of success even at the receipt of this vindictive tirade, but wrote to our prisoners to "be patient, and wait a while longer," until he made another trial.14 In a few days thereafter they received the joyous news of their liberation; and on the 16th of September, the governor of the castle, representing the "magnanimous nation," and acting under instructions "natural to Mexican magnanimity," gave each of the Texians ONE DOLLAR to bear his expenses to Texas, being a distance less than two thousand miles, and then turned them upon the open common as if they had been so many herbivorous animals. One hundred and twenty was the aggregate number released, of whom there were at Perote 105, Vera Cruz 10, Mexico 3, and Matamoras 2, (See Appendix No. V.)15

In solemn, melancholy duty, we again turn to inquire where are the balance of that brave band who fought at Mier and Salado? My heart sickens at the answer. Their bones are strewed from the banks of the Rio Bravo to the bottom of the great sewer of [382] Perote - they are washed by the grand river of the north, and widely scattered in the mother mountains - they are bleaching upon the battle-fields of Mier and Salado, and whiten the commons of Vicario, Potosi, St. Miguel à Grande, Dolores, and San Juan del Rio. Peace! peace be with their ashes! Eternal honour and gratitude to their memories!16

* The following incident, related to the writer by Captain S. C. Lyon and Mr. Harvey, gentlemen of unimpeachable veracity, is strikingly illustrative of Santa Anna's vindictive hatred to the Texians. After their liberation on the 16th of September at Perote, they were making their way, via Vera Cruz, to take shipping home, and had proceeded twenty leagues below Jalapa, when they stopped at a house upon the roadside for a drink of water. At this place they saw a coach which had just previously stopped to change mules, accompanied by a guard of about twenty lancers. In the house was an individual in citizen's dress, with a gold band around his cap, who, upon Harvey's entering with his hat off, asked if he was a Texian. "Yes, sir," was the reply. Turning quickly to Captain Lyon, he said, "Are you likewise?" "Si, Señor," the captain politely replied; when the great unknown, no less a personage than Santa Anna, the President of Mexico, aimed a blow at his head with his walking-cane, which was promptly caught upon the arm, the captain at the same time stepping out of the reach of a second; whereupon Santa Anna turned against Harvey, who was still uncovered inside of the door, and violently assaulted him. The President's vengeance possibly found some pretext at Captain Lyon's replacing his hat after the meeting salutation, but those who are acquainted with the natural urbanity of this gentleman can find no excuse for conduct in the Mexican despot which would be a disgrace to the veriest tyrant of Arabia. After thus wreaking his vengeance upon two unoffending, worn-down prisoners, whom his "MILDNESS AND MAGNANIMITY, NATURAL TO THE MEXICAN CHARACTER," had starved two years in dungeons, he drove them off, under the most vulgar oaths, without one drop of water. At the same time that the reader's indignation cannot fail to be greatly provoked at such a brutal outrage, language suitable to it would, perhaps, illy become these pages.

In the face of these and a thousand other brutal outrages committed by the dictator, as well upon English subjects as others, such is POLITICS, that the Queen of Great Britain considers him a fit representative of St. George's cross. The enlightened throughout the world will concur in the opinion that this proud and most honourable badge was most unfitly bestowed. (See Appendix No. IX.)