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AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
duty and had shown more lenity than would have been shown in such a case in any othe1' country When the case was fairly understood all the reasonable men con- demned Capt.Doons conduct- • I wish much to have Mrs Holley see the upper country as she is already preparing a work for publication on her return and I wish her to have a fair opportunity to describe the country and to see you long enoug[h] to get your ideas as to the representation best calculated to make such impression on the public mind as will suit your views of policy- . . The affair of Hall and Phelps is like to do much mischief- which ever way it goes if Hall gets the land it establishes the principle that an individual may occupy the property of another without the warrant of any public authority or judicial act which might lead to much mischief and great disconfidence in titles gen- erally 1 - If Phelps has vitiated his title no act of Halls can make it good. but it strikes me as very dangerous to permit an individual to appropriate the labor of another to himself before (ltny judicial act of forjeitwre i8 hail-if permitted on one pretense now it will soon be resorted to on another. I have already heard men speak of denouncing land on the ground of.forfeiture for non settlement, having a league of the Hall family in view on which they say not a tree has been cut- who can foretell the effect of such proceedings upon the public mind here and ·in.the US where the Matter will not be understood and no doubt be much misrepresented- I am very anxious about my_family. the cold storm still continues. The moment I get them housed I shall come to St Felipe and visit the upper country if the weather will permit to look out a retreat for the summer I would not keep my family at Bolivar through such a Season as the last for all Texas it would be a certain sacrifice of the lives of some of them- I think somewhere near Coles or Chrism::ms will from all accounts be healthiest and safest there being a strong population there and in case I get the Swiss families I have sent for I will place one of them there to commence a vineyard- J W[e]stall has this moment come in with informa- tion that the Nelson is off the Bar and my family on shore at Captn Chases all well- It .rains hard but I start at once • H. AusTIN [Rubric] My fingers and Ideas are froze up [Addressed:] Col S F Austin St Felipe d·e Austin
1 See Hnll to Austin, July 26, 1831.
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