, I I
land acquired by foreign selllers was sold to them by the state,) at from thirty to one hundred dollars per square league. In 1833, thirty square leagues of land were voted by the late legislators, to a young man (who had previously received a grant of eleven leagues), as pay for one year's salary, for his services as judge! Some eight hundred square leagues were sold by these legislators, in 1834 and 1835, to speculators, principally foreigners, and to themselves; for the same legislators who passed the law for a part of this sale, were purchasers, at from about fifty to seventy-five and a hundred dollars per square league. It is not my intention to cast any censure on the legislators of Coahuila, or on the individuals who purchased; the object of the former was to raise funds out of the sale of Texas lands, to replenish the state treasure which was empty- the latter were speculators, whose object was to take advantage of any law or circumstance that favored their views. I have mentioned this subject to prove more clearly the fact that all the legislation of both general and state governments, on the subject of Texas lands, has been based on the full belief that they were valueless, and that the nation and the state were great gainers by getting this wilderness settled, so as to have a barrier against Indians, without any cost whatever to the nation, on the contrary, with the gain of from thirty to one hundred dollars per square league. There never has been any kind of organization in Texas, that merits even the name of a governmnt, at least not since the year 1827. The moral principle of the people governed them, and kept the country quiet. Peace prevailed in this country, until last May; in that month, a revolutionary ball was thrown into it by the state authorities of Monclova, all valient Mexicans; and since then, not a month, indeed scarcely a week has passed, without some act on the part of the general government or its authorities, to increase the irritation, and hurry this country into revolution, or into anarchy and ruin, so as to involve it in a war, to which they give the character of a national one against foreign adventurers. And yet, according to the general government of Mexico, the people of Texas alone are to be blamed for every thing, and deserve death. It is something like the fable of the wolf, who devoured a sheep for muddying the water of a brook in which they were both drinking at the same time, the wolf some hundred yards above the sheep.
I o
I
86
Powered by FlippingBook