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Santa Anna was held prisoner for five months while the victors debated his fate. Eventually the Mexican leader was escorted to Washing- ton, where he met with President Andrew Jackson (fig. 4) before he was returned to Vera Cruz on an American warship. 6 Austin, Archer, and Wharton arrived in Washington in late March 1836. There was, of course, no Texas embassy building. Like many other officials living in Washington in that era, including congressmen and senators, the Texas representatives over the years domiciled in a number of different boarding houses and conducted much of their business from there. (Currently, the Washington, DC chapter of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas is research- ing the locations of those sites and hoping to obtain some recognition for them.) The Texans who represented the republic over the years became well-known figures at the seat of government. Some of them came from well- connected Southern families, and Southern politicians in particular made sure they were included in the District's social events. They enjoyed easy access to government, from the president on down. But although politely received, the "ambas- sadors" were never able to secure formal rec- ognition by the United States. The great dif- ficulty, they impatiently informed their own government, was that even though newspaper accounts reported that Texas had declared its indepen- dence, they had received no formal notification of that event. The United States would not recognize Texas, they wrote, "until it is presented to them by someone with ministerial powers from the same Convention that made the declaration." If they had received such pow- ers, they asserted, "Texas would have been, by this time, recognized, if not admitted into this Union." 7 The commissioners were unaware of the political drama that had unfolded in Texas since their departure. Governor Henry Smith was increasingly at odds with the Provisional Council. After a number of quarrels, he adjourned the body, denouncing them as "scoundrels" who were guilty of "low intrigues." They in turn charged Smith with "official perjury," as well as "slanders and libels," and removed him from office. 8 David G. Burnet became interim president on 17 March 1836. The provisional council appointed seven additional Texas agents to the United States over the next two months, without informing any of the preceding rep- resentatives that they had been replaced. The welter of diplomatic appointments seems to confirm the impres- sion of Virginia traveler William Fairfax Gray that the Texans did not know "how to go about their business." Unable to accomplish their goals, the discouraged origi- nal commissioners returned to Texas. Austin later said that one of his great regrets was the time he had wasted in the United States. 9 In September 1836, Texans elected Sam Houston the first president of the Republic, a contest in which he out- polled Stephen Austin by a vote of 5,119 to 587. It was a Fig. 4. Andrew Jackson by David Rent Etter (1835) 39 THE CAPITOL DOME