THE AUSTIN PAPERS 415 tions appeared and TeaJas became A .general topic of discussion in the U. S. papers 1 This roused the attention of the Mexican Govt. and excited their jealoucy that the U. S. were determined to take this country by force right or wrong, and this mistaken notion has produced the law of 6 of April last prohibiting emigration from the U. S. and suspending all the contracts of colonization, except in the colonies that are "establislied "- this clause was crowded in by my .friends to cover this colony 2 (for mine is the only one that is established) and under it I shall be able with good management to keep open the door for some time longer, and perhaps untill a new order o.f things takes place, I have had two difficult tasks to perform here, one to manage the Govt. and the other to man·age the settlers, of these, the latter was by far the most difficult- I do say that the North Americans are the most obstinate and difficult people to manage that live on earth, tho I have had many "backwoods men" and "rough follows" to do with. Emigrants from europe are not prohibited, and I sometimes think that Swiss and Germans will promote the pros- perity of this country much more than North· Americans- They will introduce the culture of the vine, olive etc. they are industrious nnd moral, they have not in general, that horrible Mania for specu- lation which is so prominent a trait in the english and North American character, and above all they will oppose slavery- The idea of seeing such a country as this overrun by a slave population almost makes me weep- It is.in vain to tell a North American that the white population will be destroyed some fifty or eighty years hence by the negros, and that his daughters will be violated and Butch[er]ed by them- "it is too far off to think of-" "they can do as I have, take care of themselves"-" something will turn up to keep off the evil" etc, etc, such are the silly answers of the slave holder-to say any thing to them as to the justice of slavery, or its demoralizing effects on society, is only to draw down ridicule upon the person who attempts it-. In the begining of this settlement I was compelled to hold out the idea that slavery would be tolerated, and I succeeded in getting it tole1·ated for a time by the Govt. I did this to get a start for otherwise it would have been next to im- possible to have started at all, for I had to draw on Louisiana and Mississippi, Slave States, for the first emigrants- Slavery is now most positively prohibited by our Constitution and by a number of laws, and I do hope it may always be so. . I have passed a truly slavish life here for nine _years, my consti- tution is much broken, my health bad, and my days are probably drawing towards a close, but I can claim some credit for what has • Tho .Daily NntlonnJ Intelligencer, Sept. 20, Oct. IS, 10, 20, 1S20, publlsht's n sympo~lum of newspaper comment, quoting many papers -for nnd against the acquisition of Texns. • I bavc been unable to verity this statement by reference to the proceedings of Congress.
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