privations, dangers and expenses,. in red~em ing !he1!1 from a state_ of nature, and notwithstandmg then contmued f,dehly and devotion to the laws and constitution of their adopted country, many of these actual occupants have been within the last year, surveyed in and attempted to be dispossessed by foreigners, and others under pretended eleven league grants from Coahuila and Texas. Your Petitioner would respectfully call the attention of your Excellency, to the absolute ruin to Texas and its inhabitants, which would ensure the substantiation of those eleven league grants to the exclusion of actual settlers. Besides the injustice of expelling so many thousands from their homes- a measure of this kind would retard the growth of Texas for 100 years. Instead of every labor of land giving comfort and support to an enterprizing citizen and his family- instead of the deserts being made to smile by the hand of cultivation- instead of having plantations overflowing with abund- ance- instead of having villages and cities enlivened by commerce, & the sprightly notes of business- instead of the whole country's · wearing the aspect of peace, plenty, prosperity, decency & satisfaction- instead of all this if actual occupants must yield to eleven league claimants, Texas will long remain the comparative wilderness it now is- millions of acres of land will be locked up in the hands of single individuals to be trod & occupied only by wild beasts & savages- or if this is not the case, these lands will be inhabitated by the tenants of foreign specualtors, who from the number of their dependents would exercise an influence in political concerns, fatal to the prosperity of the country, and incompatible with the principles of Republican simplicity. It is needless to descant upon the total min which a state of things like this would bring upon us. In consideration of and for the prevention of these evils, your Petitioner earnestly prays that your Excellency, would lay this petition before the Congress of Coahuila and Texas, accompanied with such a recommendation as you may deem it worhty of, and also that you would use your influence in order to procure the co-operation of the Ayuntamientos of your department in cffectuating the objects of this application to the Government. The mode suggested by your petitioner, for remedying or prevent- ing the evils above complained of, is, that the Political Chief's and all of the Ayuntamiento's of Texas, should unitedly petition the Congress of Coahuila and Texas, to allow the people of Texas, the privilege of electing seven of their fellow-citizens as commissioners, whose duty it shall he to promptly and finally settle according to law and justice, all disputes in regard to land, and to give confirmed titles to all who arc entitled lo them. Unless something of this
lO
Powered by FlippingBook