PAPERS OF MIR-\BEAU Buo APARTE L.\~f,\R 357 individuals, the donor lose all further claim or owner hip over the thing bestowed. But in our case, the government only gave wild lands that they might be redeemed from a state of nature; that the obstacles to a first settlement mi.,.ht be overcome, and that they might be placed in a cituation to au(l'ment the physical trength, and power, and revenue of the republic. It is not evident that l\Iexico, before the present revolution, held over the colonized lands of Texas, the same jurisdiction and right of property which all nations ·hold over the inhahited parts of their territory. But to do away more effectually the idea that the colonists of Texas are under great obligations to the :Mexican government for their donations of land, let us examine at what price the government estimated the land~ thus given. Twelve or thirteen years ·ago they 0 ave to a colonist one league of land for settling in Texas, he paying the government $30, and last year (18'35) they sold hundreds of leagues of land for a less price to undomiciliated foreigners. A true tatement of facts then, is all that is necessary to pay at once that debt immense of endle~s grati- tude which in the e timation of the ignorant and the interested, is ·due from the coloni ts to the Mexican government. It is perfectly evident that the colonist , in paying the government price for their land , in expelling the savages, protecting the frontiers, redeeming the wilderness, and in augmenting the physical strength and resources of the nation, have rendered a full compensation for all that they ob- tained £row Mexico. •I pass over the toil, and sufferings and dangers which attended the redeeming and the cultivation of their land by the colonistc:;, and turn to th~ir civil condition since their connexion with Mexico. \Ve have never !mown what quiet and security were ince we have been in Texas. To make this more plain, I will briefly relate the bloody and revolting history of the late Mexican Republic. On the establishment of the Independence of .i:Iexico, in 1822, Gen. Iturbide, by fraud and force, caused himself to be proclaimed em- peror. He was soon dethroned and banished. He returned, however, from his e.·<ile, and was put to death. This being over, Victoria was elected president, during all of whose term of service, the country was torn to pieces by civil wars and con piracies, as i evidenced by the rebellion and banishment of 1\Ientuno, Bravo, and others. Victoria served only four year , and General Pedraza, was elected his suc- ce or,-but he was dispossessed by violence, and Guerero put in his place. Guerero was scarcely seated before Bustamente, with opep. war deposed him, put him to death and placed him elf at the head of the government. Bustamente was hardly in the chair before Santa Anna disposs ssed him by deluging the country with a civil war; which after strewing the plains of the noble state of Zacatecas with her murdered citizens-murdered, only because they contended for their constitution-has rolled on with unglutted vengeance and can- nibal ferocity to the shores of Texas-there-to complete the work of ma acre and desolation. This, in a few· sentences, is the history of Mexico durin° the fourteen years of her independence, and what is it but an unbroken history of treachery-or violence-and of blood? Can the same amount of crime and carnage be culled and collected from .one hundred years of ·the history of any other Christianized
Powered by FlippingBook