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PAPERS OF :MIRABEAU BuONAPARTE LAMAR
· the Several Departments which accompany this communication. Ow- ing to a severe and protracted illness, I have not been able recently to bestow that personal attention to these details which under other cir- cumstances they would have received; and from the same cause I am now compelled to pass by many subjects of interest, which I desired and had intended to lay before you. I am pleased, however, to think that the wisdom and patriotism which prevail in your body, will more than supply any deficiency resulting from my present infirmities. But gentlemen, I cannot conclude this brief and imperfect communication without directing the reflections of Congress, to the many obligations we are under to that all competent Power who watches the ways of man with a sleepless eye, and stamps the destiny of Nations according to their deserts. When we mark His protecting hand in the progress and happy termination of our Revolution, and consider the numerous bounties which are daily bestowed upon our Country, by His benevolence, we have reasons above all other people to be satisfied with our condition, and have the highest incentives to gratitude, piety and patriotism. Scarcely five years have elapsed since Texas, almost desti- tute of every means of war and with a population less than forty thou- sand souls, first raised the standard of resistance to the despotism and misrule of a Government, claiming the controul of boundless wealth and eight millions of inhabitants; and yet, within that short period, against such fearful odds, she has not only achieved, and se- cured her Independence beyond the reach of doubt, bnt has maintained a well organized Government, establi~hed friendly relations abroad; more than quadrupled her population, and now exhibits to the world a Country teeming with all that is essential to the necessities or happi- ness of man; and this has been done without incurring a debt exceed- ing five millions of dollars. In comparing our situation with that of other countries, it will be strikingly obvious, that whilst we are favoured by a greater exemption from the positive ills of life, we are also in the possession of larger share of its blessings than almost any other people on the Globe; for as yet we are in a great measure not only unaffiicted by those political strifes, public burthens, and other f[right]- ful causes of private and national dissatisfactio[n] which disturb the tranquility and prosperity of even [the] oldest and best organized Governments, but we fin[d] ourselves a united people, consolidated by a common interest, in the full enjoyment of all the political and moral advantages which free and enlightened institutions can confer as well as all the physical blessings which are found in a fruitful soil, a be- nignant climate, and a land of beauty; and if amidst this happy con- dition of things, we are occasionally called upon to encounter the in- conveniences and difficulties inseperable stages, we should remember that they are evils of a temporary nature, which time and patriotism will remove, and which cannot constitute a cause for gloom or dis- content. Let us then gentlemen, surrounded as we are by so many political and national advantages, indulge in no unfounded complaints or ungrateful repinings; but let us endeavor to be thankful to the Giver of all gifts, and manifest by a course of honest and enlightened labors, that we are neither unworthy the blessings we enjoy, nor in-
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