17
THE AUSTIN PAPERS
names or assume our rights. We therefore deem it an essential duty to ourselves and our country to make a public avowal of our disapprobation to such men and measures as are now exciting among us a scheme for the purpose of organizing a local Govt. in Texas the measures proposed for that purpose we conceive to he directly at varia·nce with the true interest of our adopted country and those among us who are most actively engaged in the measure we concieve to he of the class of men above mentioned who would sacrifice every man in Texas who is likely to become conspicuous in promoting good order and tranquility to their sordid ambition or vin- dic~ive personal feelings or mere tools and instruments of such men. We conceive the course recommended for the purpose of organising as calcu- lated to do much harm by exciting the jealousies of the Govt. as has been done on former occasions by a few clamorous men who have falsely proclaimed opinions and feelings to be those of the people which were always repugnant to our feelings and in as much as erronious opinions have thus been imposed upon our Govt and our neighbors by our neutrality we feel it a duty from which we can no longer abstain to take this method of expressing our disapprobation to any such measures and seriously hope that those men will take the hint and allow us to have penetration enough to discover their virtues and talents and allow us to call on them when we require their aid. We take this mode of making this our expression of feelings by each of us assigning our names to these presents that it may not he said it is only the feelings of a few and that every man's name may show for itself.
AUSTIN TO JAMES F. PERRY
Mexico Nov. 6 1834
MY DEAR BROTHER AND SISTER, Your letters by Messrs. Grayson and Jack were a great relief to me, and afforded me more gratification than r have experienced for a long time. How anxious I am to be with you, and settle myself along side of you on a farm free from troubles or other matters. Had I cared as much for my own individual happiness and welfare as I have for that of Texas and its inhabitants I should now be enjoying a quiet and comfortable life, as the rest of you all in that country are. But no one ought reasonably to expect to effect any important object of a public nature without labor and suffering of some kind, and if he sustains his honor unblemished, and has the consciousness of having done his duty, he ought to bear all with patience and fortitude. I have this consolation-I have done my duty to the people of Texas so far as it was in my power to do it, and I have not in anything departed from my duty as a good and faithful Mexican citizen, as the decission of the tribunal in my case will attest {as I believe in a
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