region, well known both to Mexicans and Americans--the planchas
de la Platte. General Gadsden's line included nearly all the
territory south of the Gila river to the thirty-first parallel of
latitude--all the advantages above mentioned--gave us the mouth
of the Colorado river, and probably a port near the head of the
gulf at Adair's Bay. We have no accurate survey of the west coast
of the Gulf of California, but I am strongly of opinion that the
original line conceded by Mexico would have thrown a portion of
the gulf into American hands, by cutting off an arm of it
extending east and north from the main body of water. A port on
the gulf is of great and immediate necessity to our Pacific
possessions. Of this hereafter.

The proposed boundaries, of the Territory of Arizona, are the
34th parallel of latitude, with New Mexico on the north, from the
103d meridian west to the Colorado; Texas on the east; Texas, and
the Mexican provinces of New Mexico and Sonora on the south; and
California on the west. The new Territory would thus contain
within its borders the three largest rivers on the Continent,west of the Mississippi©-the Rio Grande, Gila, and Colorado of
the west, and embrace 90,000 square miles.

The Gadsden purchase is attached by act of Congress to the
Territory of New Mexico. At the time of its acquisition there was
scarcely any population except a few scattering Mexicans in the
Mesilla valley, and at the old town of Tucson, in the centre of
the territory. The Apache Indian, superior in strength to the
Mexican, had gradually extirpated every trace of civilization,
and roamed uninterrupted and unmolested, sole possessor of what
was once a thriving and populous Spanish province.