the vote- when there appeared 1,900 for Houston and 300 for Lamar. I have seen many men from there, friends of Houston as well as enemies, and they all agree that no man could get the command from Houston, and that it was never the intention of Burnet that any man should supersede him. The Texian army is at Victoria on the Gaudaloupe-the Mexican in the neighborhood of Matamoras, 300 miles from the Texian army. I spent some time with Gen. Houston, his wound is healing fast, and the physician says he is in better health then he has been for two years. He was in fine spirits and told me he would start for head quarters in about three weeks. I stopped at Gaines' camp a few hours. The old General informed me he expected volunteers from Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama. [William Parker] [To the Editor of the Natchez Free Trader] [3838) [BRACKENRIDGE to------] Tarentum, Penn. August 1st, 1836. Sir: The flattering manner in which you were pleased to notice my last letter, would have induced me, to have promptly complied with your request, in relation to the boundary of Texas, but that my domestic concerns, and a certain reluctance to appear before the public in a way which may seem presuming, prevented me at the moment. The increasing interest in the position of that country, has awakened me from the lethargy which I was beginning to feel; another crisis in the affairs of the infant Republic is approaching, and I fear, the collision between the United States and Mexico, is almost inevitable. The boundary set up by our government in the place of the Sabine, contrary to the Treaty, contrary to all the maps, and to the continued assert of Louisiana, is something entirely new to me. The Rio Hondu, between Natchitoches and the Sabine, was the boundary until the treaty of 1819; the country south of it to the Sabine, was considered a kind of neutral ground, and jurisdiction was claimed and exercised by both nations. The treaty contem- plated that Sabine river, on which Gen. Wilkinson was encamped, on one side, and Salcedo on the other. I never heard of another Sabine; nor did it ever enter into the head of any one, while I w.is in Louisiana, to claim the Post of Nacogdoches, excepting under the
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