At the time
that San Antonio was attacked and taken by Colonel Cooke, in 1835,
several cannon-shots struck the dome, and a great deal of damage was
done; in fact, all the houses in the principal square of the town are
marked more or less by shot. One among them has suffered very much; it
is the "Government-house," celebrated for one of the most cowardly
massacres ever committed by a nation of barbarians, and which I shall
here relate.
After some skirmishes betwixt the Comanches and the Texans, in which the
former had always had the advantage, the latter thought it advisable to
propose a treaty of alliance. Messengers, with flags of truce, were
despatched among the Indians, inviting all their chiefs to a council at
San Antonio, where the representatives of Texas would meet them and make
their proposals for an eternal peace. Incapable of treachery themselves,
the brave Comanches never suspected it in others; at the time agreed
upon, forty of their principal chiefs arrived in the town, and, leaving
their horses in the square, proceeded to the "Government-house." They
were all unarmed, their long flowing hair covered with a profusion of
gold and silver ornaments; their dresses very rich and their blankets of
that fine Mexican texture which commands in the market from fifty to one
hundred and fifty dollars a-piece.
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