THE AUSTIN PAPERS 1079 iin judgment or opinion, and an honest change of that opinion; and a secret or malicious design or plot to ruin another, by weaving a political net around him for that express purpose. Neither the public good nor patriotism can have any influence in such a·design-. none but a base and corrupt heart could, or would have any hand in such a foul plot. I am unwilling to believe that any persons in Te1as are influenced by such low and degrading motives. However time will show. There is an investigating and discriminating power in the public eye, that sooner or later will penetrate the most complicated mysteries, and arrive at the truth, and public opinion ~ill then award justice where it is due. To that eye, and to that opinion, I am ready and willing to submit my actions, my reputation, or my life. In common with my friends at San Felipe, and in other parts of Texas who took a part in the State question, I possibly may have committed the error, which is often committed in all countries, of paying more attention: to popular excitements, than they de- ser,ecl. Both my friends and myself were precipitated into the measures of the Convention, by the circumstances of tlie times, That measure was adopted to avoid greater evils, than those which then afilicted the country, ns well as to seek for a redress of existing ones; but whether my friends and myself committed an error or not, on that occasion is not now so important a question, because good, and ,ery great and, permanent good has resulted to Texas, and to the Me.!ican nation from those measures, and from my exertions and sufferings, and no one can say·with truth that he has been injured by us. \Ve have persecuted no one, and used no efforts to undermine or to clistroy any one. _ Neither S. F. Austin nor one ·of his friends have made charges before the Government, or before the public against any one, on ac- count of the past trarn:actions. Their object, and their only object, was the public good o:f Texas, and of the 1\fexican republic, and not the ruin of this, that, or the other individual. Their object has been accomplished. The public good ha.s been promoted, and no one _has been injured or· calumniated by them. They have not es- tablished news papers to abuse and calumniate a companion who acted with them in those measures, 1 and "iri c·oilsequence of having d?ne so, is incarcerated in a di•stant dungeon-, unable to defend hunself or to repel calumny. They have not attempted to reach the ears of the Government by entering the back door of the Govern- ment.house, and infusing suspicion and poison into the minds of the high authorities for the purpose of perpetuating the imprison- ~This ls a reference to tbe Advocate o! the People's Rights, established by John A. Q arton. Bee the editor's "Notes on Earlv Texas Newspapers," Soutlnvestern Historical narteri,, XX!, 139. •
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