confidence in them, and I believe that whatever can be done, they will do, but shall not expect impossibilities of them. They may reach and take Monterey, after hard fighting and much suffering, and then be compelled, by superior numbers, to fall back on the Rio Grande, and fortifying themselves, carry on a war of detachments with little prospect of any definitive result. There is no hope of bringing the war to a speedy close without putting in the field at least twenty thousand regulars and thirty thousand volunteers, and their advancing from Monterey and Vera Cruz, after taking those places. The advance on the capital ought to be made at the same time, so as to compel Santa Anna to divide his force. A good deal has been said about the extension of slavery beyond the Rio Grande. My design in these letters is simply to state facts and give honest opinions. I am not an abolitionist, nor interested in the question of slavery, nor will I suffer my party feelings to bias my judgment in relation to Mr. Polk and the democratic administration. The idea of negro slavery beyond the Rio Grande, is, in my opinion, erroneous. The climate is doubtless, adapted to the culture of sugar and cotton; but then negro slaves cannot be retained on the Mexican frontier longer than they shall think proper to remain in slavery. They would escape into Mexican territory when they pleased; and there being but few negroes in that country, and none having been held in slavery, they would enjoy a consideration there, unknown even in the free States of the Union. The wealthy Mexicans would not want their services, as they have already a cheaper kind of servitude in their peons, or half indian laborers. Negro slavery was once attempted to be introduced into Mexico for the culture and manufacture of the sugar cane, but failed, and the slaves set free. The peons, with a nominal freedom, are actually slaves. They receive trifling wages, scarcely sufficient to provide them with the bare necessaries of life. It is even doubtful, whether a slave population can be placed nearer than the Nueces, on account of their facilities for escape. A large proportion of Southern Texas presents the same objection to the removal of the Southern planter. These Mexican acquisitions, or proposed acquisitions, are greatly overrated in the slave holding States, and the danger is equally magnified in the minds of those who are opposed to the further extension of slavery. Neither of these parties are disposed to view the subject in a practical light; it is like the dispute in the fable about the color of the Chameleon—one asserted that it was black, and the other that it was white, but when exposed to view, it proved to be green! ------------------------------------------------------------------------