So was it with Spain and her American colonies. Instead of soothing and pacific measures, tending to allay resentment and bring back the rebel to allegiance, the utmost violence was at once adopted both in deeds and language, and scenes of barbarity were enacted by Calleja and his myrmidons from which the heart recoils with horror.[31] Severe as was the lesson taught by the conduct of Spain to Mexico, that republic, nevertheless, resolved not to profit by it when she, in turn, saw one of her States discontented with her misrule and usurpations. If Texas had been soothed; if justice had been speedily done; if the executive had despatched discreet officers, and reconciled the differences between the North American emigrants and the Spaniards, not only in civil and municipal government, but in religion and temper,--Texas might not have been lost to Mexico,--but, invigorated by a hardy and industrious population, would have poured commercial wealth into her coffers, and furnished her factories among the mountains with an abundance of that staple which the native Indians are as unused as they are unwilling to cultivate. Had Mexico been even as wise as Philip, in 1609, and saved her punctilious honor by a twelve years truce, she would only have postponed the settlement of her difficulties, until her internal affairs became sufficiently pacific to enable a firm government to act with discretion and justice. * * * * * Since the year 1843 the Texas question has been so much a matter of party dispute in the United States that the true history of the revolt seems to be almost forgotten. I shall not hesitate therefore to recount some of the events connected with it, because they are relevant to the issue between us and Mexico, as well as necessary to the elucidation of the justice of her quarrel. It is an error that the Texan rebellion was conceived in a spirit of sheer fraud upon Mexico; and writers who seek to stigmatize it thus are entirely ignorant of its origin.