THE AUSTIN PAPERS 269 United States, who nearly all pronounced it visionary and im- practicable. . You must pardon my egotism in speaking so much of myself, but the history of this settlement is so closely connected with me indi- vidually, that one cannot be clearly explained without allusion to the other, and beside it seems to •account in part for some of the eIToneous opinions that has spread as to powers of the Empresario, for those who ·were ignorant of the language, or who would not or could not take the· trouble of inquiring, supposed or pretended to suppose that I deri vecl nil my authority solely from being Empresario, when, in fact, I held various distinct appointments, and those powers have been supposed to attach to the Empresario, which in no respects whatever belong to him- Also, they have confounded the old National Colonization law of January 4th, 1823, which is no lori~r in force, with the present State law passed 25th of March, 1825. • • • As I have before observed, my business wa.s despatched by the National Government, 14t};l ·of 'April 1823. About one yea.r after- wards the State governments were established under the Federal system, and on the 18th of August, 1824, the N utional Constitutional Congress (the same that formed the'Federal Constitution, and was, in fact, the Convention,) passed a lii.w relinquishing to the States respective limits, and authorizing each State to make its own Coloni- zation law, with the restriction that not more than eleven lea.gues of land should be granted to any one individual, and also that the lands within ten ·leagues of the coast and twenty le'n.gues of a line of an adjoining nation, should not be colonized or grnnted without the con- sent of the President of the nation. Under this authority the State of Coahuila and Texas passed the colonization lnw of l\farch 24, 1825, which is now in force, and under which all the Empresarios have been·made, for my first Colony is the only one that was ever granted under the law of the 4th of January, 1823. In addition to my first Colony, I made three contracts with .the State Government to settle 900 families in all, on the vacant la71.(l remaining within the limits designated for m~v first Colony; one of those contracts includes the·land bordering on the coast, which was granted with the special approbation of the President a.s the law requires. Also, in one of said contracts (the one on the coast,) I ,vas appointed Commissioner as well as Empresario, nnd in virtue of these two distinct appoint- ments, all the powers of both were ·cent.red in me. I am the only person in whom these two appointments ever have been united although others have only looked at what I did without examinin~ my authorit~ or attending to my advice; and have ·supposed that all Empresar10s could do the same. ·
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