June 4 1836 to July 21 1836 - PTR, Vol. 7

new-comer to the country, whom I never saw, and concerning whom, few, very few of those as old in the country as myself, know any thing more, than what is stated above. But for one, I am free lo confess, that past experience has· taught me to regard with great jealousy, new and strange men. I cannot feel that confidence, (and recent developments tell me tlrnt I ought not to feel it,) in an entire stranger to our population, to our early colonial history, our numberless privations, and untiring persevarence in preparing a home for the enterprising of all nations, that I do feel in some who have participated in all the vicissitudes of the early settlement of the country. l am of those who believe the wisdom of every country adequate, if laid under contribution, to any, and every emergency, which the most adverse circumstances can possibly present. Of course I believe the people of Texas competent to command the army of Texas - and if our friends from the United States were less ambitious of emolument, and more so of service than they sometimes have been, some of the most serious difficulties which now await, and have long afflicted us, would never have existed - would never have arisen to "a local habitation and a name." The gentleman whose recent appointment to the command of our army is here noticed, is said to have behaved well, nay, bravely on the 20th of and 21st of April, on the field of San Jacinto, and his subsequent letter to the cabinet on the dispostion of the wholesale murderer, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, must inspire every true friend of the cause of Texas, with high respect for his talents as a happy writer. This paper is drawn in a style of great felicity; and terms with sound, irrefragable, and convincing argu- ment. It does high honor to the head and the heart of its author. But if every one who fought as bravely on the bank of the San Jacinto as Mr. Lamar did - if every volunteer from abroad, capable of presenting to the world an able paper, were to be rewarded with like liberality, honoured with a like command, we should have an army of Generals - for on that field, but one proved recreant, and he was a Texian - and amongst the volunteers from the United States, there are many, very many well educated, talented, and highly gifted men. And if all such were honored in the same proportion that M. L. has been, Texas too, as well as Mexico, would have her hundred Generals. I am not of those who are said to quake and tremble, and supposed, (if such there be; and 1 am assured there are such in the new, as well as in the old administration,) at the arrival of volunteers in our cause from "the land of the free and the home of

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