73
THE AUSTIN PAPERS
AUSTIN TO SAMUEL M. WILLIAMS
[From the Williams Papers. Rosenberg Library, Galveston, Texas.]
Mexico 6 May 1835
MY FRIEND, The Amnesty law was published on the 3d _instant, and I shall be at full liberty to leave here so soon as the necessary forms are completed to cancel my bail bonds etc- D. Victor Blanco intends to leave here about the 26 instant and I shall wait for him if I do not conclude to go by water, for I am at·present unde- termined, tho think it probable shall go by land in which event expect to reach Monclova about the 20 June- presume you will have left there for home long before that time- It is my wish and intention to take wing in the spring-by that time I can close all my affairs I hope, and be able to spend a year or two in a ramble- I have a constitutional excuse or rather I am [con]stitutionally impeded by having a causa pendiente from holding [the] seat in the legislature to which I have been elected, so that there will be no difficulty on that account The 400 le[ague] law 1 has totally distroyed the moral standing of that legislature with all parties-and the Commandant Gen'- has gained credit 2 - I recd· your letter of 8 ult and the letters you enclosed- Toney [Anthony Butler] left for the U. S. on the 29 ult. and Almonte on the 30 th - I have never in all my life known so bad, and base a man as Butler- At the time he wrote the O P Q letters 3 he was my enemy, and yet he wro_te them as tho they came from a friend of mine, and consequently they were very well calculated to rouse the people of Texas into rebellion, and also to throw suspicion on me and perpetuate my imprisonment, and this imprison- ment was used by him ·as a lever to create and keep up excitements in Texas, at the head of which he expected to he placed- He thinks, as it appears, that the people of Texas can be made tools of to promote the personal agrandisement of A. B. [Anthony Butler]- he is greatly deceived, or I do not know the people- Everything is quiet here [and] likely to remain so- That state of course [will] remain quiet and Texas in particul[ar]-it ought to do so- Remember me affect'ionately to Peebles and Johnson, and also to my old friend B. Milam who I am told by Offutt is in Monclova, also to Carbajal and Durste Inform them l\t home Yours [Rubric] 1 See Austin to Williams, April 15 and 29, 1835. 2General Cos marched· against the State Government at Monclova to annul the land sales. 3 For the O.P.Q. Jette~, see Mi.uiJsippi Jlalley Historical Review, XI, 109-119.
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