660
Al\-IERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
THOMAS Kmn:HAM TO AusTIN
Franklin, La., May 6, 1831.
See Calendar.
HENRY s. TANNEit 'l.'O AUSTIN
Philadelphia, May 6, 1831.
See Calendar.
AUSTIN TO SA:i\lUEL M. WILLIAMS
,[From Williams Papers, Rosenberg Library, Gnlveston, '£ex.]
Leona Vicario May 8. 1831
Dn Sm. I voluntiercl to pay the office fees on all the petitions for land pending from Bexar, Goliad and Nacogdoches, and to take on the grants. This has detained me a week longer than I expected as they could not be completed. I am told that they will all be ready tomor- row morning, so that I can start in the afternoon. The mail of yesterday brought me yours of 19th ult. and Lesassier's. I am much gratified to hear that Burnet and wife have arrived he will be a very valuable acquisition I think, that is, provided he keeps cool and always has a good stock of calmness and prudent discretion· on board, articles which are dayly becoming more and more necessnry in Texas. The sending of the Cotton seed was just •as it should be. I am truly pleased that you did not forget it, for you recollect that I was compromitted by officio to send a few boxes to La Bacn-much better that it was sent to Tampico-close attention to such small matters will do great good. I presume the tonnage duty has been satisfactorily regulated-that is as to the principle that it cannot be collected from one Mexican port to another-if it has not, it will be. The first part of _Lukes letter alarmed me, but I laughed before I finished-who or what is this firebrand he speaks of-Stockton- he can do no harm unless consequence is given to him by putting him in irons, or some other notice of that kind-you know the people there well enough to know, that a scape gallows, or a dog can be made a great man among them, merely by being opposed by a few decent men and especially by any one in office. "Tli..e abuse of a little brief a1.ithority" is in the mouth of every North American and there is not one in 50,000 who are competent to distinguish between, a proper and necessary exercise of authority a,nd its abuse-with the most of them an officer is always wrong- either too undecisive and weak-or too rigid and despotic. Let such
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