THE AUSTIN PAPERS 75 A great deal of pains has been taken by some one to foment dis- cord between Bowie and his connections and me, one of them has told me who he thinks it i~he thinks him to be an aspiring man, an enemy at least to both Bowie and myself- I care not much about sucp. matters. I shall soon be clear of all this stuff and of public matters I hope. An order has gone on to inquire how the two cannon came to be nt Brazoria etc. This thing should be managed ·very prudently. The facts as to how they came into the country should be clearly stated, that is-The Steam boat Ariel bad them on board on the rio grande. This boat started from that river for orleans and put into the Brazos river for wood, and after taking in the wood it was found necessary to lighten her as much as possible to get over the bar again, and those two guns and other things were left for that purpose; that, notwithstanding this, the boat stuck on a bar and wns damaged so much that she· was finally lost in Galveston bay etc. etc. It would be best to sell those two guns to Bradburn as he re- quested-they will do more harm than good in their present situa- tion-or they i:night be delivered to the custom house officer that has gone to Brazoria.. • The best friends we have in this place are alarmed lest there should be some imprudent act committed at Brazoria, which will put the colonists in the wrong, and afford a pretext to harrass them, and also defeat the memorial. They think that if any such im- prudence is committed, it will turn the Santana party against the colonizing system and make them enemies-but if no imprudence is committed they think the memorial will succeed, even with the pre.sent administration, and certain if Santana gets up. This is also my opinion. There is over 1000 troops in Texas, and over 700 in Matamoros, and a large garrison in Tampico. Thi,s force can all be thrown into Texas by water, in a few days, besides the militia of the adjoining states. If things can be kept quiet in the colony all will end right and prosperously, of this I have no doubt-what is needed there is a ~eail calm,,. All reflecting men will become convinced that the true mterest of Texas is never to separate from Mexico, and that it is the true interest of this nation to encourage the population of Texas, and make a state of it. This being the case the govt. will remove the restrictions and the country will prosper. We have already seen what a check, even the rumor of difficulties in Texas has given to emigration. If difficulties should arise in reality, there would be no emigration at all, and many would leave the country, and the indians would take possession of it.
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