ee thousand convicts, who,
on all occasions, were put in the post of danger. At the attack on the
Alamo they were promised a free pardon if they took the place.
Nevertheless, they advanced reluctantly enough to the attack, and twice,
when they saw their ranks mown down by the fire of the Texians, they
turned to fly, but each time they were driven back to the charge by the
bayonets and artillery of their countrymen. At last, when the greater
part of these unfortunates had fallen, Santa Anna caused his fresh
troops to advance, and the place was taken. The two last of the garrison
fell by the Mexican bullets as they were rushing, torch in hand, to fire
the powder magazine. The fall of the Alamo was announced to Colonel
Fanning in a letter from Houston.

"The next point of the enemy's operations," said the old general, "will
be Goliad, and let the garrison reflect on the immensity of the force
that within a very few days will surround its walls. I conjure them to
make a speedy retreat, and to join the militia behind the Guadalupe.
Only by a concentration of our forces can we hope to achieve any thing;
and if Goliad is besieged, it will be impossible for me to succour it,
or to stake the fate of the republic upon a battle in the prairie, where
the ground is so unfavourable to our troops. Once more, therefore,
Colonel Fanning--in rear of the Guadalupe!"

At last, but unfortunately too late, Fanning decided to obey the orders
of his general. The affairs of the republic of Texas were indeed in a
most critical and unfavourable state. St Antonio taken, the army of
volunteers nearly annihilated, eight or ten thousand Mexican troops in
the country, for the garrison of Goliad no chance of relief in case of a
siege, and, moreover, a scanty store of provisions. These were the
weighty grounds which finally induced Fanning to evacuate and destroy
Goliad. The history of the retreat will be best given in a condensed
translation of the interesting narrative now before us.

On the 18th April 1836, says Mr Ehrenberg, at eight in the morning, we
commenced our retreat from the demolished and still burning fort of
Goliad. The fortifications, at which we had all worked with so much
zeal, a heap of dried beef, to prepare which nearly seven hundred oxen
had been slaughtered, and the remainder of our wheat and maize flour,
had been set on fire, and were sending up black columns of smoke towards
the clouded heavens. Nothing was to be seen of the e