676
Al\-IERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
nll that wealth can give, and Texas would now, and forever be, as I found i~a wilderness, and many of the capitalists of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore etc: would have been gulle·d out of thousands. . A moneyed fanatic would say that I have followed a shadow, for a fortune I have not made as yet, but I shall have a competence and am satisfied. The credit of settling this fine country and laying the foundation for a new Nation which at some futiwe pe1wd 'will arise here can not be taken f1·om me; and that part of my family who have ventured to follow me will be sufficiently provided for. Your brother Henry for instance, has eleven leagues of la.nd, title indisputable, for it is a special grant direct f1·om goveniment. All he has to [do] is to remove his family here this fall and settle perma- nently in the Country, take care of his land, and it will make his children independent. But his family rnust come this fall or the title will be defective; for another mistaken idea of the New Yorkei<s js that land can be held here by persons who live in the United Sta.tes. This is so far from being true that a man who lives here and his family is elsewhere cannot hold land except as a single man; and even that is doubtful, for his domicil must be here, and that is considered to be where his family resides. There is a vast opening in this country for emigrants. The old inhabitants of Louisiana would be well received by this Government if a number of the French Creoles would apply to the Mexican Consul for. passports to remove to this Colony, or request him to write officially to the Government in Mexico on the subject of an emigration from Louisiana it would aid me some in my efforts to get the law of 6th April 1830 stopping emigration from the United States, modified or repealed. Negroes can be br·ought here under indentures, as servants, but not as slaves. This question of slavery is a difficult one to get on with. It will ultimately be admitted, or the free negroes will be formed by law into a separate and distinct class-the lab01-ing class. Color forms a line of demarkation between them and the whites. The law must assign their station, fix their rights and their disa- bilities and obligations-something between slavery and freedom, but neither the one nor the other. Either this, or slavery in full must take place. Which is best 1 Quien Sabe~ It is a difficult and dark question. . I am spinning out a long letter, and I fear a dry one. But as you are about to remove here as a colonist I thought it would be satis- factory for you to lmow as much of the matter as possible, and ns some of your New York friends are in the Company operation you might let them know that their ideas of my unfriendliness are all
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