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TEXAS STATE LIBRARY
month, a passport was placed in my hands with an order to quit the Capital within three days; to pass to Vera Cruz, where the yellow fever was then making fearful ravages, and on my arriving there, to leave the Republic immediately. My quality of a citizen of the United States was not less disregarded on this occasion than my innocence. The 14th article of the treaty of the 5th April, 1831, between the United States and 1\1:exico was insolently trampled upon, and I was despotically banished. Periodical, academy, rich furni- ture, and considerable sums due to me, all was lost in a twinkling of an eye. On the 11th of August, of the same year, I landed at ?-,Jew-Orleans, and in the Bee of the 13th, the public were enabled to peruse the details which I have just related, the protest I had deposited at the American Consula-te in Mexico against this atrocious abuse of power; the valuation upon oath of three competent appraisers of the amount of loss sustained by me, and other collateral documents, all which were transmitted to· the government of the United States, who took measures to include my claim among those of other citizens, like me the victims of Mexican oppression. "\Vhat the ultimate fate of these claims will be, I am incapable of imagining. A few days after my arrival at New-Orleans, I came near losing my wife on account of the sufferings to which she had been sub- jected, and I owe her final recovery entirely to the care and attention of the skillful physicians, Messrs. Halphen and Albuzzi. At the expiration of about one month and a half, I received through the house of Herman & Co. of this city, eight trunks, which want of time and of adequate means of transport, had compelled me to leave in Mexico to the care of Messrs. l\Ianning & Marshall. Six of these had been broken open and every article of value abstracted, to the amount of more than three thousand dollars. In the meanwhile, the President of l\l'exico put his project into execution and entered 'l"exas at the head of 8000 men. In a letter which I wrote from New-Orleans, dated October 7th of the same year, addressed to Lorenzo de Zavalla in Texas, one of my truest friends, and one of the principal leaders of the Colonists, among other things, I used the following language: "I must not omit to inform you that every one is here anxious respecting the fate of Texas, and I am myself ready to mount on horseback, although more than sixty years of age, and defend the sacred rights of the Colonists, if they will grant me the simple post of Chasseur in the van-guard of their noble co-horts.'' The reply to this letter had not yet been received when, on the evening of the 13th of the same month, a meeting took. place in this city, of which l\fr. William Christy was president, and at which sub- scription lists were opened for the first time, for money and volun- teers for Texas. I was the first to subscribe my name, and received from Mr. Christy himself the pen with which I placed myself at the head of the list. It is unnecessary here to record the effect produced by this example of my grey hairs: the Bee of the ,day following, and other papers made honorable mention of this circumstance. But I could not but regret that I was not subsequently called upon to make part of a company. I felt this keenly, and complained of it in
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