formed that the Spanish government, while furnishing arms to the Indians who were hostile to the United States, refused to allow provisions to pass up the Escambia for the American troops. Upon the approach of General Jackson, the Spanish governor retired to Fort Barrancas, which, being menaced by the United States troops, was surrendered after a slight show of resistance.

A treaty of peace, consisting of sixteen articles, was concluded between Spain and the United States on the 22d of February, 1819, ceding the Floridas to the United States. The sixth article of this treaty provided that "the inhabitants of the territories ceded to the United States should be incorporated into the Union of the United States, as soon as might be consistent with the principles of the Federal Constitution, and admitted to the enjoyment of all the privileges, rights, and immunities of the citizens of the United States.'

The eighth article provided "that all the grants of land made before the 24th of January, 1818, by Spain, should be ratified and confirmed to the same extent that the same grants would be valid if the territories had remained under the dominion of Spain."

The ninth article provided that "the United States would cause satisfaction to be made for the injuries, if any, which by process of law should be established to have been suffered by the Spanish officers and individual Spanish inhabitants by the late operations of the American army in Florida."

These articles of the treaty have given validity to what are now known as Spanish grants and claims for losses, in which so many of the people of Florida were interested.

The treaty was finally ratified on the 19th of February, 1821. The change of flags in East Florida took place at St. Augustine, 10th of July, 1821, under Governor Coppinger on the part of Spain, and Colonel Robert Butler on the part of the United States; in West Florida, at Pensacola, on the 21st of July, 1821, Governor Callava representing the Spanish government, and General Jackson that of the United States.From Fairbanks's History of Florida.

The best general history of Florida is that by George R. Fairbanks, which covers the whole period from the discovery by Ponce de Leon in 1512 to the close of the Florida War in 1842. The brief section giving an account of the military proceedings, in which General Jackson was the leader of our own forces, just preceding the cession of Florida to us by Spain, is printed above. It is with the situation immediately after these proceedings that the

passage in Monroe's message of 1818, which stands first in the present leaflet, deals. This situation and the general subject of the cession by Spain are discussed in Gilman's Life of Monroe, Morse's Life of John Quincy Adams, the lives of Jackson by Sumner and Parton (in the latter with special fulness), as well as in the general histories of the period.

"The Acquisition of Florida" is the subject of a special essay in the appendix to J. L. M. Curry's "Constitutional Government in Spain," which is particularly recommended to the student. See also article on Annexations in Lalor's Cyclopædia. For information concerning the early history of Florida, see John Gilmary Shea's chapter on Ancient Florida, in the Narrative and Critical History of America, vol. ii., with its full bibliographical notes. A section of the famous "Narrative of the Gentleman of Elvas," giving an account of De Soto's explorations, is printed in Old South Leaflet No. 36.

The whole of Monroe's special message of May 9, 1820, a single paragraph of which is printed above, should be read by the careful student, who will also note the brief references in the annual messages of 1817 and 1820, and read the special messages of January 13 and March 26, 1818. Finally, in February, 1821, the ratification of the treaty by the Spanish government was received; and, in his second inaugural address the next month, Monroe

said:
:-

Great confidence is entertained that the late treaty with Spain, which has been ratified by both the parties, and the ratifications whereof have been exchanged, has placed the relations of the two countries on a basis of permanent friendship. The provision made by it for such of our citizens as have claims on Spain of the character described will, it is presumed, be very satisfactory to them, and the boundary which is established between the territories of the parties westward of the Mississippi, heretofore in dispute, has, it is thought, been settled on conditions just and advantageous to both. But to the acquisition of Florida too much importance can not be attached. It secures to the United States a territory important in itself, and whose importance is much increased by its bearing on many of the highest interests of the Union. It opens to several of the neighboring States a free passage to the ocean, through the province ceded, by several rivers, having their sources high up within their limits. It secures us against all future annoyance from powerful Indian tribes. It gives us several excellent harbors in the Gulf of Mexico for ships of war of the largest size. It covers, by its position in the gulf, the Mississippi and other great waters within our extended limits, and thereby enables the United States to afford complete protection to the vast and very valuable productions of our whole Western country which find a market through those

streams."

The fall of the Alamo and the massacre of its garrison, which in 1836 opened the campaign of Santa Ana in Texas, caused a profound sensation throughout the United States, and is still remembered with deep feeling by all who take an interest in the history of that section; yet the details of the final assault have never been fully and correctly narrated, and wild exaggerations have taken their place in popular legend. The reason will be obvious when it is remembered that not a single combatant of the last struggle from within the fort survived to tell the tale, while the official reports of the enemy were neither circumstantial nor reliable. When horror is intensified by mystery, the sure product is romance. A trustworthy account of the assault could be compiled only by comparing and combining the verbal narratives of such of the assailants as could be relied on for veracity, and adding to this such lights as might be gathered from military documents of that period, from credible local information, and from any source more to be trusted than rumor. As I was a resident at Matamoros when the event occurred, and for several months after the invading army retreated thither, and afterwards resided near the scene of action, I had opportunities for obtaining the kind of information referred to better perhaps than have been possessed by any person now living outside of Mexico. I was often urged to publish what I had gathered on the subject, as thereby an interesting passage of history might be preserved. I consequently gave to the San Antonio Herald in 1860 an imperfect outline of what is contained in this article, and the communication was soon after printed in pamphlet form. Subsequently to its appearance, however, I obtained many additional and interesting details, mostly from Colonel Juan N. Seguin of San Antonio, who had

been an officer of the garrison up to within six days of the assault. His death, of which I have since heard, no doubt took away the last of those who were soldiers of the Alamo when it was first invested. I now offer these sheets as a revision and enlargement of my article of 1860.

Before beginning the narrative, however, I must describe the Alamo and its surroundings as they existed in the spring of 1836. San Antonio, then a town of about 7,000 inhabitants, had a Mexican population, a minority of which was well affected to the cause of Texas, while the rest were inclined to make the easiest terms they could with whichever side might be for the time being dominant. The San Antonio River, which, properly speaking, is a large rivulet, divided the town from the Alamo, the former on the west side and the latter on the east. The Alamo village, a small suburb of San Antonio, was south of the fort, or Mission, as it was originally called, which bore the same name. The latter was an old fabric, built during the first settlement of the vicinity by the Spaniards; and having been originally designed as a place of safety for the colonists and their property in case of Indian hostility, with room sufficient for that purpose, it had neither the strength, compactness, nor dominant points which ought to belong to a regular fortification. The front of the Alamo Chapel bears date of 1757, but the other works must have been built earlier. As the whole area contained between two and three acres, a thousand men would have barely sufficed to man its defenses; and before a regular siege train they would soon have crumbled. Yoakum, in his history of Texas, is not only astray in his details of the assault, but mistaken about the measurement of the place. Had the works covered no more ground than he represents, the result of the assault might have been different.

From recollection of the locality, as I viewed it in 1841, I could in 1860 trace the extent of the outer walls, which had been demolished about thirteen years before the latter period. The dimensions here given are taken from actual measurement then made; and the accompanying diagram gives correct outlines, though without aiming at close exactitude of scale. The figure A in the diagram represents the chapel of the fort, 75 feet long, 62 wide, and 22 high, with walls of solid masonry, four feet thick. It was originally of but one story, and if it then had any windows below, they were probably

walled up when the place was prepared for defense. B locates a platform in the east end of the chapel. C designates its door; and D marks a wall, 50 feet long and about 12 high, connecting the chapel with the long barrack, E E. The latter

was a stone house of two stories, 186 feet long, 18 wide, and 18 high. FF is a low, one-story stone barrack, 114 feet long and 17 wide, having in the centre a porte-cochère, S, which passed through it under the roof. The walls of these two houses were about thirty inches thick, and they had flat terrace roofs of beams and plank, covered with a thick coat