At the period when the Texans began agitating and claiming their independence, the Mexican Government, deceived at the outset by the agents appointed to watch that state, sent insufficient forces to re-establish order, and crush the insurgents: but the movement soon assumed such a distinctly revolutionary character, that the President found it urgent to make an effective demonstration. Unfortunately it was too late; the dissatisfaction had spread: it was no longer a question of suppressing a revolt, but stifling a revolution, which is not at all the same thing. The President of the Mexican Republic then learned at his own cost that, in every human question, there is something more powerful than the brute force of bayonets: it is the idea whose time has come and hour struck. The troops sent to Texas were beaten and driven back on all sides; in short, they were compelled to treat with the insurgents, and withdraw ignominiously. The government could not, and would not, accept such a dishonouring check inflicted by badly-armed and undisciplined bands, and they resolved to make a last and decisive effort. Numerous troops were massed on the Texan frontiers; and to terrify the insurgents, and finish with them at one blow, a grand military demonstration was made. But the war then changed its character: the Texans, nearly all North Americans, skilful hunters, indefatigable marchers, and marksmen of proverbial reputation, broke up into small bands, and instead of offering the Mexican troops a front, which would have enabled them to outmanoeuvre and crush them, they began a hedge war, full of tricks and ambushes, after the manner of the Vendeans, the first result of which was to enormously fatigue the soldiers by compelling them to make continual marches and counter-marches, and produced among them discouragement and demoralization, by compelling to fight against a shifting foe, whom they knew to be everywhere, and yet could never seize. The position became more and more critical. These outlaws, branded with the epithets of bandits, border ruffians, and freebooters, whom they affected to confound with the villains who congregate in these countries, and whom they obstinately treated as such by granting them no quarter, and shooting them without trial wherever they were captured: these men, now disciplined, hardened, and strong in the moral support of their fellow citizens, who applauded their successes, and put up vows for them, had boldly raised the flag of Texan independence, and after several engagements, in which they decimated the troops sent against them, compelled the latter to recognize them as the avowed defenders of an honourable cause.