1044
AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
violent men or measures and speak to the govt. through the legal channels, that is the ayuntamientos and chief of department, as they would speak to a kind and affectionate father, and they will then be listened to a.nd all their reasonable requests will be granted. I hope there will be no excitement about my arrest, and I par- ticularly request that on your return, you will say that I request of the people there to remain quiet, and not be excited because I am arrested. No injustice or violence will be done me, I have been very kindly and respectfully treated since my arrest. It may cost me some months and perhaps a year delay and great expense ·but nothing more, and good will finally come out of it £or Texas. God knows the Colony has given me trouble enough. I am wasting away my years, my strength and my spirit to try and make all your fortunes. I have no time of my own, it is all yours, and yet many of you (I speak of the colonists) complain-you lissen to men who are my enemies. If you think I do wrong in anything it is un- pardonable and magnified, you get perverscd and excited and violent and drag me into difficulties in spite of myself these things however are all inevitable. Upon the whole my Colony has suffered much less from party spirit and division than most new settlements under such circumstances, and it ·is now entirely safe. The govt. is in favor of Texas and will pi·otect it, and the people are beginning to have too much property and too many c·omforts at home to risk them by any more conventions or excitements. I think things will now get better and better eYery day, and that consideration and reason will have more weight than they heretofore have had. If so there will be peace, and prosperity. I particularly request that you will say to the people that I advise them to harmonise fully with the Mexican part of the population. This is very important indeed. Remember me kindly to everybody. I am as I. always have been and will be a friend to Texas and to you all. S. F. AusTIN
AUSTIN TO P.ETER AND JOSEPH POWELL
I send two likenesses of mine which 1 request :Mr Powell to put into the hands of my sister or Brother in .law Perry Please take care of them-they are painted on ivory in water colors and wet will ruin them. Mr. Allsbury will put them in a box and they cnn •be put in your trunk edgewise so as not to crack the glass by any weight on it. •
S. F. AusTu~
:Mr. Peter Poweln and Joseph Powel Dn. H. Allsberry Pilon.
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