Home / Browse / Literature & History / The History of the Republic of Texas.
MAILLARD, Nicholas Doran.
The History of the Republic of Texas.
From the discovery of the country to the present time; and the cause of her separation from the Republic of Mexico.
First edition. Maillard was a British lawyer who arrived in Texas in January 1840. He quickly settled in Richmond and became co-editor of the Richmond Telescope. He was also admitted to the bar by the Fort Bend County district court. Maillard claimed to be making notes on the law, but he returned suddenly to England eight months later and began a campaign of fierce denigration of Texas. The book is scathingly critical of the Republic, especially its policy towards Mexico. Maillard claimed Texas was "filled with habitual liars, drunkards, blasphemers, and slanderers; sanguinary gamesters and cold-blooded assassins". Those two Texan titans Stephen F. Austin and James Bowie are labelled "the prince of hypocrites" and a "monster" respectively. His book was in sharp opposition to William Kennedy's Texas: The Rise, Progress, and Prospects of the Republic of Texas (1841), a pro-Texas work then popular in Great Britain. Ashbel Smith, chargé d'affaires to Great Britain, stated that Maillard's book failed to "produce the slightest effect" upon the British recognition of Texas independence, which was achieved on 28 June 1842. Despite its obvious partiality, the book is valued for its excellent account of Indians in Texas in the early 1840s and the accompanying map. It is rare in commerce, especially in fine condition.
Octavo. Original dark green cloth, covers blocked in blind, spine lettered gilt, yellow coated endpapers. Folding map outlined in colour as frontispiece. Extremities lightly bumped, spine faintly sunned, but an exceptional copy of this scarce book.
