'l'HE AUSTIN PAPERS 737 ments in the custom house regulations, as well as all oth"3rs, will be satisfactorily arranged by the Government, and when that is done Texas will flourish and prosper as a state of ·tlie lrlexican confedera- tion more thnn in any other situation in which it could be placed. The wild intemperance of some of the good folks almost put even me into a fever. But, it is past. Such men do harm, for their feelings are not sufficiently guided by judgment. •Your observations about --- are correct. I have seen many things in him I could wish different, yet he is about the best I have near me. Can you wonder that I nm poor, or that I should sometimes have felt like an isolated being1 But I will let that chord alone. It jars too harshly with the harmonious things at the bottom of this page. Such an enterprize as the one I undertook in settling an unin- habited country must necessarily pass tlµ-ough three regular grada~ tions. The first step was to overcome the roughness of the wilder- ness and may be compared to the labor of :a farmer· on a piece of ground covered with woods, bushes and brambles, which must be cut down and cleared away', and the roots grubbed ont before it can be cultivated. The second step was to pave the way for ·civili- zation and lay the founda~ion for lasting nild productive advance- ment in wealth, m·orality and happiness. The step might be com- pared to the ploughing harrowing and sowing the ground ·after it is cleared. The third and last and most important s·tep is to give proper and healthy direction to public opinion, morality and edu- cation ;-to give tone, character and consistency to society, which, to continue the simile, is gathering in _the harvest and applying it to the promotion of human happiness. In trying to lead the Colony through these gradations my task has been one of continued hard labor. I have been clearing away brambles, laying foundations, and sowing the seed, the genial influences of Cultivated society will be like the sun shedding light, fragrance and beauty. I am more and more anxious to close my colonization business and retire to pl'ivate life. They laugh at me when I speak of it, and declare that I shall die of ennui-that gardening · farming and btock-raising will tire and disgust me. They do not lmow my dis- lJOsition. There is nothing visionary in our calculations. Wealth here is not indispensable; and I would set the Colony an example. of economy and plainness. In all countries the poorer class are too often mortified, and the middling dass ruined by the extrava- gant example of ~he rich. Th~ former feel degraded because they nre so far below, and the latter indulge n false pride, and waste their substance by futile attempts to ape their more dashing neigh- bors. Heaven save us from extremes. Let us have a just and rea- eonable medium between poverty on the one hand, and excessive
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