468
THE AUSTIN PAPERS
This was truly alarming and would have been pernicious to the best interests of Texas. It is well known that nothing but injury to this coun- try has resulted from the companies who have had colonizalion contracts in Texas. They have uniformly made it a matter of illegal speculation by selling "Land Scrip" and dec~iving the ignorant and credulous in foreign countries. The credit of Texas and all faith in any of our land titles has been destroyed in the U. S. by such proceedings, and emigration has been retarded rather than promoted by them. Besides this, it was very evident that the upper Colony, if granted to a foreign Company, would be again hung up for six years, as it had been by the Nashville Company, and thus have left the settlers in my Colonies below, exposed to the Indians; and what would have been still worse, that nothing but anarchy and perhaps civil war would have been produced within the limits of my old colonies, if a Foreign Empresario or .Company were permitted to have anything to do with the distribution of the vacant land remaining there. A single re- mark will be sufficient to bring this matter home to the understanding and feelings of everyone who has any interest in this subject. If at thi'.s time some•of our own citizens advocate the montsrous doctrine that all titles are void and the land vacant, where each and all of the conditions and minute formalities of the Colonization Laws have not been complied with by the Settler: What could have been expected from a foreign Empresario or Company whose ·only object would have been speculation and to have had as much land forfeited as possible? Under these circumstances it was a solemn and paramount duty in me to keep the land business within, and adjoining my Colonies, as much under my own control as was possible. I should have failed in my obligations to the Settlers if I had not done it, and should have merited censure from them, and yet it seems that I have been, and am abused because I did do it. Another consideratoin of great importance to Texas influenced me. Gov. ernor Jose M. Viesca was, and uniformly had been friendly to Texas and to its settlement by Americans. His term of office was to expire on the first of March, and his successor Letona was known to be unfriendly to Texas· and hostile to Americans. Influenced by my duty to Texas, and not by any selfish motives of personal interest, I therefore applied to Governor Viesca for a colonization contract to comprehend all the vacant lands remaining within the limits of my forme~ Colony (except the coast) and to extend above the San Antonio road to include all that country. This application succeeded with great difficulty, and by the influence of the leading.men of the Federal or liberal party then in_Saltillo, for although Austin and Wil- liams were Mexican Citizens and were not excluded by the law of the 6 th April 1830, still the Governor had scruples because they were born in the U.S.
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