ed to Spain. In that note he states that--

By the treaty of the 22d of February, 1819, between the United States
and Spain, the Sabine was adopted as the line of boundary between the
two powers. Up to that period no considerable colonization had been
effected in Texas; but the territory between the Sabine and the Rio
Grande being confirmed to Spain by the treaty, applications were made
to that power for grants of land, and such grants or permissions of
settlement were in fact made by the Spanish authorities in favor of
citizens of the United States proposing to emigrate to _Texas_ in
numerous families before the declaration of independence by Mexico.

The Texas which was ceded to Spain by the Florida treaty of 1819
embraced all the country now claimed by the State of Texas between the
Nueces and the Rio Grande. The Republic of Texas always claimed this
river as her western boundary, and in her treaty made with Santa Anna in
May, 1836, he recognized it as such. By the constitution which Texas
adopted in March, 1836, senatorial and representative districts were
organized extending west of the Nueces. The Congress of Texas on the
19th of December, 1836, passed "An act to define the boundaries of the
Republic of Texas," in which they declared the Rio Grande from its mouth
to its source to be their boundary, and by the said act they extended
their "civil and political jurisdiction" over the country up to that
boundary. During a period of more than nine years which intervened
between the adoption of her constitution and her annexation as one of
the States of our Union Texas asserted and exercised many acts of
sovereignty and jurisdiction over the territory and inhabitants west of
the Nueces. She organized and defined the limits of counties extending
to the Rio Grande; she established courts of justice and extended her
judicial system over the territory; she established a custom-house and
collected duties, and also post-offices and post-roads, in it; she
established a land office and issued numerous grants for land within its
limits; a senator and a representative residing in it were elected to
the Congress of the Republic and served as such before the act of
annexation took place. In both the Congress and convention of Texas
which gave their assent to the terms of annexation to the United States
proposed by our Congress were representatives residing west of the
Nueces, who took part in the act of annexati