980
AMERICAN IDSTORIOAL ASSOCIATION
The basis of my policy, so far as I had any thing to do with Texas matters, up to last July the time when I returned and found all in confusion, was this-never to put the interests of the settlers at hazard, and to rely more upon the regular and natural progress of things for remedies, than upon efforts to force them prematurely. The settlers have earned what they have got too hard, and by too many years of hard labor and privation, to jeopardize all hastily-a war with the nation will be ruinous to them, for they will be de- stroyed and overwhelmed, eaten up by those who come from abroad to aid them in fighting their battles. They have more to dread from such friends, and from Indians, than from the whole i\foxican nation. Had I been an ambitious military leader, the reverse of this would have been my policy, and I would have aroused and led on the settlers, and inflamed them into a war and then made use of them (as all military leaders do of the people) to build up my own fame as a chieftain, success would have deceived the most of them and made me a great man, nominally. For I think that true greatness consists in doing the most good, and not in acquiring the most fame- when I entered Texas I laid it down as a fixed rule of action, to conquer that country with the axe, the plough and the hoe. Silently and gradually my ambition was to benefit all, and make use of none as mere instruments to build up myself and a few chosen band of leaders. Every military leader must of necessity be surrounded by a set of leeches, who must be kept fat, and whose ambition must be gratified, ·and whims satisfied. All this is done by using the people as tools, or rather as food to glut upon. I am the friend of farmers. The plough is my favorite weapon for conquest, and I ani not the friend of the useless dupes in society. I look upon the most of military and professional men as useless. I speak in general of the masses as we find them. Also, I have pursued concilliation as a system; both in the colony and out of it. I did so because a small spark kindles a great flame, and such flames always injure the farmers and working classes. Besides this, a child is easier destroyed in a conflict than a full grown man. l\1y policy has displeased the ardent spirits in my colony, but I still think it was the correct one; and I see no necessity for abandoning it and adopting the reverse as a basis. Though, if it is abandoned, I shall go into the opposite extreme, and adhere to it as fully, and as obstinately, as I have to the system of concillintion, and perhaps much more so than some of those who are easily excited, and talk much about fighting. Upon the whole, I think we have all got along wonderfully well, considering all things; and I have the fullest confidence in the most favorable results.
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