794
AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
have been the author of the law of 6 April before mentioned. Itisthe opinion .of many very good and impartial men, that the intreagues, speculations and general depo-rtment of :Mr. P-- would have caused any people or any Govt to loose confidence in the purity of his intentions and even to doubt the good faith of the Govt. which he represented-he was certainly an unfortunate minister for he hu5 left a prejudice against his countrymen in the minds of some which nothing but time can remove.] No, sir, the people of Texas do not wish to seperate, and it is not and will not be their interest to do so, unless they should be kicked off. They will do their duty to this govt. but they will also have an eye to the duty which every man in all communities, owes to himself. But to return to our future state consitution we have some few settlers in Texas, now bending under the weight of years, whose youth was spent in building up a home in the wilds of Kentucky and other parts of the west. The indians, the Buffalo, the cane breaks and the :forests gradually-disappeared-population and civilization soon changed the face of everything. They rejoiced and looked for- ward to the enjoyment of a quiet old age in their once forest homes, surrounded by their children, and by peace and plenty. It was all a delusion-there was nothing real but the pleasure of dreaming that thus it would be-civilization brought with it the monied rnania. The hostile indians were replaced by civilized savages of a more brutal and dangerous character, cold hearted unprincipled specu- lators, men who considered that to make a fortune, was the great and paramount and only object of human life-Lanoyers, who found in the labyrinths and abstruse sections of the common law, unex- hausted and unexhaustable arms for the protection of tergifersation quibbling and injustice, and for the ruin of unsuspecting and ignorant honesty. The forest homes of the first settlers were converted into scenes of legal discord and contention-the first emigrants whose enterprise had opened the road for the easy entrance of land and law harpies were dragged by them into court and after years of ruinous sus- pence were finally told that they might live in their homes as tenants or if that did not suit them they might go penniless farther west and seek new ones. ,v- e have a few of another class who have been reared in affluence, and were content with their situation-they en- joyed in a prudent manner wh~t they.possessed without jeopardising it by grasping after more-their prudence and systematic mode ?f living availed them nothing-it ruined them, for it gave them credit. Their neighbors and friends needed endorsers, ruin, beggary, and the total loss of friends was the result.
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