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called. You and myself are almost strangers, our personal inter- course has scarcely been sufficient to enable us mutually to estimate each other properly. I have a very decided friendship for all Col G. [Groce's friends¥] I have full confidence in League and he assures me that vV. H. vV. is all that a man of honor and a firm and stedfast friend ought to be. My own disposition is frank open and confiding. But the experience of the last six years in settling this wilderness and the unfavorable light in which human nature has been so often presented to me, has greatly weakened my gen 1 confidence in man- kind, it has howe_ver had the effect to make me cling the closer to the few who are really and substantially men. I now write under the conviction that you are of this class and shall therefore throw aside ceremony or reserve. I wish to see you permanently locate here. All that is now wanting in Texas is a few more nien in this colony, not open mouthed politicians, nor selfish visionary speculators, nor jealous ambitious declamatory demegogues who will irritate the pub- lic mind by inflamitory criticisms about temporary evils and by in- dulging in vague surmises. '\Ye need men of enlightened judgment, disinterested prudence, and reflection, with a great stock of patience, unshaken perseverence and integrity of purpose. Men who will calmly put their shoulders to the wheel and toil for the good of others as well as for their own, and who will be contented to rise with the country without aimin[g] to force it forward prema- turely to overtop the gen 1 level of prosperity by undue individual advancement. A band of sucli men firmly linked together by the bonds of mutual confidence and unity of purpose and action could and would make Texas the garden of North America. You know enough of the population here to be convinced that we lack men of this class I have in this respect stood almost alone. The fate of this colony has so far rested pretty much upon my own resources, my own exertions and management. Councellors I have never had. When I began the whole country was a wilderness wholly destitute of resources, the Govt unsettled, the Mexicans gen 1 >" very much prejudiced against North Arnn emigration and public opinion in the United States most decidedly unfavorable both as to the real value of the country, the character of the Mexican Govt and even as to the practicability of succeeding in forming any other kind of settle- ment here, than a nest of fugitives. Such were the prospects under which I commenced. They were so discouraging that all my friends united in trying to persuade me by argument and ridicule and by every other means to abandon the project. I myself believed that the probabilities of failure or success were almost equal, but I deemed the object worthy of the risk and I had confidence in myself. I foresaw that I must enlist myself as a kind
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