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TEXAS STATE LIBRARY
of the young and rising Republic of Texas is a station when reached by Services even less palpable and brilliant than the world with jns- tice accord to yours, might well be esteemed among the most dig- nified and important on the habitable Globe! Its honourable admis- sion to membership, in the great family of nations is no longer a ma.tter of doubt - and its influence and weight in that family will very much depend upon its history for the first quarter of a cent 'y of its existence. The spirit of its Constitution and laws and their administration for that period, will in my opinion fix its char- acter, and mainly control its destiny- I nee'd not here remark, that I have been from the commencement of the Revolution the ardent and sanguine friend of Texas - for who has not been so, that has a spark of freedoms spirit in his bosom, or a drop of the blood from our revolutionary fathers coursing in his veins? But I have experienced something more than this general sentiment of solici- tude for a people struggling for liberty - I had a friend, to whom I felt .bound by more than ordinary ties, who had united his destiny to the result of tha't struggle - for whom, on his own account, I felt deeply interested and I need not say that friend was yourself -, But to the Brother of that friend, now mingling with the spirits of "the just made perfect." Alas! too early cut off in the very bloom and maturity of his fame and usefulness! How shall I speak of Him? than whom a purer, nobler, and better man, never lived nor died - Oh! could his pure spirit once more rise to reanimate and refine the earth! which was too gross and impure for his elevated spirit long to tolerate and inhabit - Could I now invoke the aid of his noble spirit! communion, and catch the scintillations of his genius his virtues and bear them along with me, through this ''vale of tears'' to .gladden and to cheer me in my pilgrimage through life. oh ! what would I not cheerfully yield up for such a consummation 1 Time, which is said to be the curer of all things, has not yet recon- ciled me to the absence of Lucius Lamar from earth! His memory is engraved on my affection, and never - never only with my last throb, and expiring humanity can it be dimmed. I was honoured by his friendship and his confidence to a degree, absolutely sur- prising to myself-and that friendship and. confidence so disinter- ested, was reciprocated by me with an ardor and constancy, which rendered his demise, to me decidedly more intolerable and painful than the loss of a Brother - The oracles of truth some where say "there is a friend that sticketh closer than a Brother," in but one instance in my career, have I found such an one, and that one, your departed Brother. He was too early in this deceptive, ever changing, and gross world - and his spirit burst its earthly manacles for a higher - "another, and a better world." In honour of his revered memory I named my last son, Lucius Lamar - and my children, aill, are taught to revere the memory of their father's friend and patron and we now have Eight in life and health, if my oldest son Homer Leonidas be so who is at present on a visit to his Grandfather Jno. Wm Devereux in Alabama, whom you doubtless will remember as one of the oldest citizens of Milledgeville. Gazaway B. Lamar has presented my son Lucius with five shares of Bank stock, which if well
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