by no means an adventurer, and had come into the beautiful
land by a sequence of natural and business-like events. He
was born in New York. In that city he studied his profession,
and in eighteen hundred and three began its practice in an
office near Contoit's Hotel, opposite the City Park. One day
he was summoned there to attend a sick man. His
patient proved to be Don Jaime Urrea, and the rich Mexican
grandee conceived a warm friendship for the young physician.

At that very time, France had just ceded to the United States
the territory of Louisiana, and its western boundary was a
subject about which Americans were then angrily disputing.
They asserted that it was the Rio Grande; but Spain, who
naturally did not want Americans so near her own territory,
denied the claim, and made the Sabine River the dividing line.
And as Spain had been the original possessor of Louisiana, she
considered herself authority on the subject.

The question was on every tongue, and it was but natural that
it should be discussed by Urrea and his physician. In fact,
they talked continually of the disputed boundary, and of
Mexico. And Mexico was then a name to conjure by. She was as
yet a part of Spain, and a sharer in all her ancient glories.
She was a land of romance, and her very name tasted on the
lips, of gold, and of silver, and of precious stones. Urrea
easily persuaded the young man to return to Mexico with him.

The following year there was a suspicious number of American
visitors and traders in San Antonio, and one of the Urreas was
sent with a considerable number of troops to garrison the