36-:1:
TEX,\S T.\TE Lt8R.\RY
would cancel ten thou and fault if he has them. Gallant, departed, lamented, martyred, and mangled heroes, ''lfo\\' many age hence
\Vill these your lofty deeds be acted o'er, In tates unborn, and accents yet unknown."
I tm t, gentlemen, that 1 will be pardoned for this digression. It wa prompted by my own irrepressible feelings of gratitude, for they poured out their blood in defeuce of 1ny rights, and in defence of the great principle of l11mum liberty, in the establishment of which, all mankind are deeply intere ted. You have now een, gentlemen, that our constitution has been violently, illegally, and totally destroyed. You have een that, nper- added to thi , our governor has been depo ed and imprisoned, our legislature dispersed, and all t11e subaltern officer of our tate, made dependent on the supreme government alone, in tead of on the suf. £rages of the people. In hort, yon have seen that our federative form of government ha been converted into a central, consolidated and miUtary despotLm, enforced and administered by bayonets alone. 1 row, mark the forbearance of the people of T.exas ! Even after all these outrage on their rights, they.did not ri e in arms, and make an appeal to the God of battles, for justice and redress of their wrongs. 'fhey still hoped that the Mexican nation would have the firmne s and patriotism to crush this military despoti m, before the practical evils of it had reached the di tant shores of Texas. In this hope, they were cruelly deceived. In the month of September last, a ~Iexican armed schooner appeared off our coast, and declared all of our ports in a state of blockade. Simultaneously with this General Co s invaded onr territory by land, with express orqers to di arm our citizens, and to require an unconditional submis ion to the central military de! potism, under penalty of extermination or expulsion from the land. True to his unholy mi~sion, he deman·ded the arre t and delivery to him of some of our most respectable citizens, to be murdered by military tribunals, or to be endlessly incarcerated in the foulest and darke t of dungeon . About the same 'time a militai-y force was sent to the colonial town of Gonzales, to demand of the inhabitants a surrender of their arm .· This demand was refn ed with the promptne and indignation of freemen. A battle immediately ensued on the 2 th September last, which terminated in the discomfiture and precipitnte retreat of the Mexican force . Gonzale wa then the Lexington of our truggle, and that same cry of injured and in nlted liberty, which from the blood of the slain at Lexington and Bunker' Hill a cen<led to high ITeav n, and penetrated every corner of thi lnncl rousing the inhabitants to avenge their langhtercd countrymen, fie\\' with elec- trical rapidity, after the battle!'! of Gonzale and t. Antonio, over the IJeantifnl and hitherto peaceful plnin. of Texa . The inhabitants promptly responded to it summon.. They felt now that farther for- bearance would he a crimc.-Tbat the cup of their hittrmc. s was full to ovel'flowinJ?. -Tltat the rod of opprc. ion had smitten . nfficicntly cvcre and that they eonld no long-er ubmit without relinriuishing- for ever t 1 he glorious a·ppellation of frc~men. Accordingly they rallied nround the standard of their country, from the hoary ,·eterun of more than sixty, down to the beardlc youth who had cnrcely nnmbered n
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