It was at that time they displayed that astute and patiently Machiavellian policy, which finally led to their triumph. In 1821, the first American emigrants made their appearance, timidly, and almost incognito, on the brazos, clearing the land, colonizing secretly, and becoming in a few years so powerful, that in 1824 they had made sufficient progress to form a compact mass of nearly 50,000 individuals. The Mexicans, incessantly occupied in struggling one against the other in their interminable civil wars, did not understand the purport of the American immigration, which they encouraged at the outset. Hardly eight years had elapsed since the arrival of the first Americans in Texas, when they formed nearly the entire population. The Washington Cabinet no longer concealed its intentions, and spoke openly of buying from the Mexicans the territory of Texas, in which the Spanish element had almost entirely disappeared, to make room for the daring and mercantile spirit of the Anglo-Saxons. The Mexican Government, at last aroused from its long lethargy, understood the danger that threatened it from the double invasion of the inhabitants of Missouri and Texas into the State of Santa Fé. It tried to arrest the American emigration, but it was too late; the law passed by the Mexican Congress was powerless, and the colonization was not arrested, in spite of the Mexican military posts scattered along the border, with orders to turn the immigrants back. General Bustamante, President of the Republic, seeing that he would soon have to fight with the Americans, silently prepared for the conflict, and sent under different pretexts to Red River and the Sabina various bodies of troops, which presently attained to the number of 1200 men. Still, everything remained quiet apparently; and nothing evidenced the period when the struggle would commence, which a perfidy on the part of the Governor of the Eastern provinces caused to break out at the moment when least expected. The facts were as follow:-- The Commandant of Anahuac arrested and put in prison several American colonists, without any plausible grounds. The Texans had hitherto patiently endured the innumerable vexations which the Mexican officers made them undergo, but at this last abuse of force they rose as if by one accord, and went under arms to the Commandant, demanding with threats and angry shouts the immediate liberation of their fellow-citizens. The Commandant, too weak to resist openly, feigned to grant what was asked of him, but represented that he required two days to fulfil certain formalities, and cover his own responsibility. The insurgents granted this delay, by which the Commandant profited to send in all haste to the Nacogdoches garrison to help him. This garrison arrived at the moment when the insurgents, confiding on the Governor's promise, were with-drawing.