resident, the former in Monterey, and the latter in Saltillo, and conse-
quently familiar at the outset with the state of affairs they were in-
structed to investigate.
  The commission was organized at Monterey on the 14th of November,
1872, and immediately proceeded to Matamoras, where it issued a set
of rules on the 21st of the same month, inviting the citizens of both
banks of the Rio Grande to present their evidence and their complaints
upon the subject in question. It remained in session at Matamoras and
other towns on the Rio Grande for several months, taking voluminous
evidence, amounting to several thousand pages of manuscript, and on the
15th of May of last year, forwarded from Monterey a preliminary report,
transmitted with this dispatch, which has just issued from the press as
a quarto pamphlet of 106 pages, forming one of the accompanying docu-
ments to the report of the minister of foreign affairs for the past two
years. This result of the labors of the commission has not disappointed
the expectations expressed by this legation, as to the amount of close
research which it displays, and the apparent conscientiousness and
moderation with which its conclusions are stated. Whether those con,
clusions, which are in general strikingly opposed to those of the Americair
commission of 1872, can be relied upon as a correct summary of the
facts concerning the border troubles, is a question Which it would re-
quire much time and other sources of information than those in the pos-
session of this legation to determine. I deem it my duty, however, to
mention some-of those conclusions, and to call the attention of the De-
partment of State thereto.
   The invitation extended by the commission to the Texan claimants
 was not accepted by them, and not a single complaint was submitted by
 any American citizen. Being obliged, therefore, to derive its facts
 chiefly from Mexican sources, it was natural that the report should give
 prominence to the losses and outrages suffered by Mexicans at the
 hands of Texan malefactors, and while presenting but little in confirma-
 tion, should contain much in abatement of the large loss alleged to
 have been sustained by American citizens. In addition to the verbal
 testimony received by the commission.,it devoted particular attention
 to the collection of documentary evidence, and it is chiefly upon the
 records of the courts of the frontier towns that it has relied in the forma-
 tion of its-report. Bearing in mind that the capital question involved
 is that of the trustworthiness of the witnesses, it took great pains to
 satisfy itself as to their character, and rejected as unworthy of credit
 many accusations made against citizens of Texas. There remained, how-
 ever, several charges of complicity in robberies of cattle, made against
 persons of some lprominence in Texas, by such a number of witnesses
 of different classes that the commission deemed them sufficiently proved.
 Among tiese persons figure authorities of the rank of judge, sheriff;
 and aldermen, and most of them appeared before the American border
 commission presenting claims against Mexico for hundreds of thousands
 of dollars in each case.
   The Mexican commission had in its hands the report of the said
 border commission, and took some pains to refute its general conclu-
 sions, and especially to show the falsity or unlimited extravagance of
 the principal claims. By reference to the published statistics of the
 cattle owned, or upon which taxes have been paid, during a series of
 years, in the frontier counties of Texas, it shows that there has been,
 until the year 1871, a constant and normal increase in the numbers of
 the said cattle;- that the number of cattle alleged to have been stolen
 from Texas in specific years is vastly in excess of the entire amount


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