“Military defeats may be moral victories, young man,” said Crockett to Thomas Worth; “and moral victories make national greatness. The Roman that filled the gulf with his own body--the men who died at Thermopylae--they live to-day, and they have been talking with us.” “But if you join Houston you will save many lives.” “That isn’t always the point, sir. Jim Bowie was saying there was once a lover who used to swim two miles every night to see a young woman called Hero. Now, he might have waited for a boat and gone dry-shod to his sweetheart; but if he had, who would have cared whether he lived or died? The Alamo is our Hero. If we can’t keep her, we can die for her.” The same spirit moved every soul at Goliad. Fanning was there with nearly nine hundred men, and he had named the place Fort Defiance, and asserted his determination to hold it. In the mean time, Houston was using his great personal influence to collect troops, to make treaties with the Indians, and to keep together some semblance of a provisional government. But it had become evident to all the leading spirits of the revolution that no half-way measures would now do. They only produced half-way enthusiasm. For this end, Houston spoke out with his accustomed boldness: “Gentlemen, we must declare the independence of Texas, and like our fore-elders, sink or swim by that declaration. Nothing else, nothing less, can save us. The planters of Texas must feel that they are fighting for their own constitution, and not for Mexican promises made to them twelve years ago and never yet kept.” The simple proposition roused a new enthusiasm; for while Urrea was hastening towards Goliad, and Santa Anna towards San Antonio, and Filisola to Washington, the divided people were becoming more and more embittered. The American soldiers, who had hitherto gone in and out among the citizens of San Antonio during the day, and only slept in the Alamo, were conscious of an ominous change in the temper of the city. They gathered their recruits together and shut themselves in the fortress. Again Thomas Worth urged them to fall back either upon the line of Houston at Gonzales, or Fanning at Goliad; but in the indecision and uncertainty of all official orders, Crockett thought it best to make the first stand at the Mexican city. “We can, at least,” he said, “keep Santa Anna busy long enough to give the women and children of our own settlements time to escape, and the men time to draw together with a certain purpose.”