THE AUSTIN PAPERS 197 to procostinate your desine or throw the least obstical in the way that would have a tendancee to cast a shade over workes of so much utility I must theirfore enjoint on you to excuse my weak epistle as you know I am no Soloman or Scribe '\-V:rir MonTON [Rubric] S. F. Austin March 25th 1829
AUSTIN _TO THOMAS WHITE
San Felipe de Austin March 31. 1829
DR Sm, •your letters of 31 J anr" came to hand yesterday and I hasten to answer the enquires you make relative to this country- you express great solicitude as to the discription of populntion that will inhabit Texas- On this subject a mistaken idea has pre- vailed in most parts of the United States, particularly as to this colony- In 1822-3 when I returned :from :Mexico to go on with the colony I found that some bad men had entered this section of coun- •try and I immediately adopted measures to drive them away which were effectual, but which drew down upon me the full force of the Malice and enmity of ·All that class, and they were not idle in fabri- cating and circulating every species of falsehoods and evil reports about this colony which ingenuity and baseness could invent-they denounced me as the tyranical agent of a despotic goyernment and endeavourd to blacken the characters of the settlers here generally- The most of those who were expellecl by me from here, stoped on the Sabine frontier or passed over into Louisiana, Many others of the same class who intended to have removed to this colony and were thus prevented, united with those who were expelled, to blow the clamor about this Govt and to blacken every thing appertaining to this colony, and in this way good men have been deceived and even detered from removing here. I lay it down as a rule that has never yet had an exception, that whoever is governed by common rumor or report about this colony, will form erronious opinions and be deceived- . I have not been understood in every instance by the people here as ·I ought to have been, they have growled and grumbled and mut- tered, without knowing why, or without being able to explain why- but it has not arisen from moral depravity or because the people are b~d, on the contrary it arose from a principle which is common to nil north-Americans, a feeling which is the natural offspring of the unbounded republican liberty enjoyed by all classes in the United States; that is, jealoucy of those in office, jeo.loucy of undue
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