through the vast region comprised within the limits of this country, looking to the population that must necessarily be drawn to it under a proper system, the proximity to our western and northwestern territory, and to the interior of Mexico itself, which, at no very distant day, may be furnished through this medium. But, as things now are, I doubt whether any of those fruits of good order will ever be matured. The present government is as well administered as its resources and the appliances of the country will admit; but as it is just in its pupilage, with no strength but confidence in the cause, no help but that which sympathy gives, and is not yet harmoniously adjusted in the motions of its respective branches, it may still be considered a mere experiment upon independence, which the loss of friends or of a single ballle may disperse lo the winds. In a former letter it was said that the residuum of public domain, after all deductions for military services and "head rights," would be one hundred millions of acres. That statement was made upon the views of the Secretary of the Treasury; since then, I have obtained an original estimate addressed to the Auditor by a scientific gentlemen, who has officiated as a surveyor, in which he reports that Texas possesses 249,900 square miles, or 160 millions of square acres, and allows 80 millions to be taken up and covered with claims which amount he says, "is too large, no doubt by one half." This would leave 80 millions of acres unencumbered for the Stale, and, supposing only one-fourth of it to be available, would yield, at 50 cents per acre, ten millions of dollars. I should presume this calculation as to quantity is incorrect, as the Mexican Government supposed Texas proper to contain in 1835 only 104,500,000 acres, and the territory between the Nueces and the Rio Grande claimed by this country since then will hardly augment the quantity by 60 millions. Texas, within the present limits, is nearly four times larger than the largest State in our Union, (Virginia,) and two hundred times larger than Rhode Island, the smallest. The separation of Texas, as an independent State, from Mexico, it is said, will awaken the attention of some of the European powers against the slave trade, which her citizens will carry on; but it is contended that this assertion must fail, when it is seen that the constitution prohibits that commerce. Even if it
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