Indian Papers of Texas and the Southwest, Vol. V

108 with the hearty response from our oppressed spirits "Long may it wave" "Oer the land of the free and the home of the brave", So far as this colony is concerned such must be the results position, Your Excellency will remember that we have a territory in this colony 164 miles in length by 100 in width, upon every and such are the natural and inevitable tendencies of our present quarter of section of which a family may live in competency and almost in affluence. The influence then for weal or woe, of so large a territory, upon the balance of the state must and will be known and felt. Many, very many good citizens from the older States, who are pleased and delighted with the fertility of our soil-with its natural advantages and our climate, have returned again to their former locations, because they could not get titles to lands they desired to purchase for their homes. The hardship of the condition of the colonist must be more fully apparent when it is remembered that they for 12 years have awaited the time for the completion of their wishes, and that their patience has been almost exhausted through anxiety and suffering. They were promised on their arrival in the coun- try, to which they had been invited patents to their lands and at each successive step of legislation for them, they have had their hopes raised, only to be blighted aagin by the company. We now, most earnestly desire to be forever divorced from the company and desire that a plain unambiguous law, be passed, which will give the relief-expected, but never have obtained. To bring the importance of conveneing an Extra session of the Legislature more fully before your excellency, and to press the necessity of the course. We would also suggest that a necessity now exists for legislative action in apportioning the representation of the country in such manner as will give the people of the state a just and equal representation in the counsils of government. We deem this a matter of deep and vital importance to the interests of the people and believe that in a fair apportionment law, rests the pure principles of a republican and democratic form of govern- ment. We urge the importance of the passage as a consideration in favor of yielding to our wishes in conveneing the legisuature The present condition of our affairs with the warlike and hostile tribes of Indians on our Northern and Western frontiers does also suggest to your memorialists a neecssity for an Extra session of the legislature, knowing as we do the vital and impor- tant interests at stake. Information has already reached us

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