The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 66, July 1962 - April, 1963 Page: 431
Notes and Documents
English gentleman residing in Baltimore whose name was Dawson,"1
and who liberally and at great risk of loss, furnished the Republic
with a small navy and other army supplies.
This sum of money settled also all debts of the Republic of Texas,
and enabled it to redeem its paper money, and still we had a surplus
of money left.
Our men, (volunteers) were all dressed in Texas military uniforms.
George W. Kendall joined the expedition as a tourist and also a
reporter for the New Orleans Picayune. I believe he was then part
proprietor or had a share in it.
Mr. Kendall, before starting, obtained a pass from the Mexican
Consul at New Orleans to travel over Texas, but the Mexican Gov-
ernment paid no more regard to it than it did to our treaty of
capitulation; therefore Kendall was treated like all of us as a prisoner,
and to the disgrace of the United States, he being a citizen thereof,
and having a proper passport, Gen. Waddy Thompson then U. S.
Minister to Mexico, after much writing and negotiation did not get
him free as soon as the foreign ministers did the prisoners of
If Kendall had been a British subject, traveling under a pass, her
navy and army would have soon been at Vera Cruz and demanded
her subject; as it was, Mr. Kendall had to undergo the indignities of
us rebels, as the Mexicans called the Texans, and at last was only
a short time sooner released than the rest of us. Nor did the U. S.
demand indemnity for Mr. Kendall, who was also maltreated, just
the same as we Texans.
The Republic of Texas did not pretend to send out the expedi-
tion for conquest, only to explore the unknown territory gained by
treaty, and to establish commercial relations with New Mexico, and
to claim the country this side of the Rio Grande, and hereafter to
keep a trade with New Mexico, and to establish military posts on
In my next I will give details of our progress, the accumulation
of our troubles and misfortunes.
11Frederick Dawson of Baltimore built and equipped six vessels for the Texas
Navy in 1839 and 184o. Tom Henderson Wells, Commodore Moore and the Texas
Navy (Austin, 1960), 5, 12, 15, 91, 129.
*As the Mexican government claimed that the Nueces was the real boundary
line between Texas and Mexico, they would naturally not regard a passport "to
travel over Texas" where the party holding it went beyond that limit; and the
U. S. Government would naturally hold that it was a question beyond its juris-
diction, involving as it did, a disputed claim between Texas and Mexico, then both
separate and independent governments. But why was a pass from a Mexican consul
necessary to travel over Texas? This statement seems to need some explanation.
-Ed. Free Press.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 66, July 1962 - April, 1963, periodical, 1963; Austin, Texas. (texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101196/m1/465/ocr/: accessed October 26, 2016), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.