people should be consulted as to the course to be pursued by Texas in the event of a central government being established. Mr. Wharton can give the news which came by last mail. Please show this letter to him and request him to act in accordance with it and he will receive my hearty thanks.
Your friend,
W. Barrett Travis
[To Henry Smith]
[4891 [ZAVALA to COLONISTS]
[ca. 7 August 1835]
Having been invited to attend the meeting of citizens to be held on the 8th inst. to take into consideration the important subjects which produce the present excitement, I regret that I am prevented from attending in person by an attack of the intermittent fever. But as I consider that a simple manifestation of my opinions on the subject might be of much service in establishing those of the citizens, a majority of whom must declare the fate of the country, I submit to the examination of the meeting the following reflections. In the first place, I must say of myself that in this I have no individual view or motion-that I have occupied in the i\lexican nation the most honorable stations; that I have written a history of the revolutions of the country with such impartiality that even my enemies have acknowledged it the only monument of the kind worthy of attention. In the second place, that, having received from Gen. Santa Anna the appointment of minister pleni-potentiary to the court of his majesty the king of France, I resigned this charge as soon as I learned that he had dissolved the congress and taken all authority into his own hands. Third, that having resigned this station, I have come to Texas to establish myself among free citizens, to cultivate the lands which I had previously purchased. Having made· these preliminary remarks, l proceed lo express my opinions respecting the nominal l\'lexican Republic. First. The regulating power in .Mexico is the military. Certain generals, at the head of whom Santa Anna happens now to be placed, and who have under their control from fifteen lo twenty thousand hireling soldiers, have destroyed the federal constitution,
I
313
Powered by FlippingBook