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TEXAS STATE LIBRARY
soon after the purchase of Lousiana by Mr. Jefferson, besieged the Spanish authorities for permission to establish colonies on the 'T'rinity and on the Guadalupe. Brady wished to settle fifteen hundred families on the latter str.eam; while the Baron de Bastrop 's project was to plant upon the Trinity an equal number of French families and Choctaw Indians. Their object was pecuniary speculation and had no reference to the Independence of the country. They failed, however, in their purpose. They knocked at the door of authority, but found no admittance. 'Though flattered for a while with pretty fair prospects of success, the proverbial bigotry and jealousy of the Spanish race prevailed in the councils, anaJ their petitions were :finally rejected in spite of the vehement devotion whi-ch they breathed to the King and to the Pope. The exclusive policy of Old Spain, and her dread and distrust of all foreigners, especially the North-Americans, had been an im- penitrable barrier to every thing in the nature of enterprise in that extensive and delightful Province. No one was permitted even to enter its fair and forbidden vallies without special permission from the government; so that the country remained almost a Terra Incog- nito to the world, until the breaking out of the Mexican Revolution, when a bold and daring set of intruders forced their way into the almost unknown solitudes, and made them to resound with the roar of arms. They entered in contemptuous defiance of the King's man- date, and relied upon their valor to legalize the trespass. 'They had no petitions to offer; no favors to ask. Liberty was their aim, and the sword their passport. Their object was precisely the same as that of our present hero-viz---to snatch the country from the grasp of depotism, and to throw open its broad and beautiful praries to the settlement and cultivation of a free, virtuous and an enlightened population.- vV e allu_de, of course, to the valient spirits who followed the cele- hrated Jose Bernardo Gutierrez de Lara, in the sanguinary wars of 1812 and 1813 in Texas.__.:This fearless and ferocious patriot, made his appearance in the United States very soon after the meloncholly termination of Hidalgo 's carreer. He came in search of succor and assistance for his beloved and bleeding country. His first appeal was to the General Government. Having encountered and conquered the innumerable difficulties and dangers which beset his long ad circuitous journey from the Rio-Grande to the Red-river, he arrived, in a desti- tute condition, at the town of Natchitoches, in the latter part of 1811; and proceeding thence, without relay to ·washington city, he communicated to the public authorities there, the purpose of his visit, and besought their official interposition in the pending contest be- tween the patriots of his country and their blood-thirsty oppressors. He was well received by the Pre3ident and Cabinet, and had his personal necessities attended to, to his own satisfaction. But this was all. In a very short time, he was fully satisfied that there was no disposition on the part of these public functionaries to involve their country in the strifes of foreign nations. Moreover, he was told that the very Province whose freedom and Independence he was seeking to establish was a portion of the United States; and that the American
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