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270
WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1851
The American settlers had borne everything until 1836. Mexico promised continually to perfect their titles for them, which she never did. She would send her taxgatherers, or her official rob-· bers, to give notice to the inhabitants that they were ready to make their titles perfect. When the inhabitants would go to them, they would say, some interlocutory action must take place, and the completion of them would be postponed. Thus she received money each year or every two years, until eight or ten had passed by; and when the taxgatherer had clutched the last cent, under his official authority, a command would come from Mexico to have him taken off. She would charge him with being unauthorized, and as having falsified the faith of his government by extorting money. Here the poor settler, with the solemn promise of government to redress his wrongs, is disappointed; his money is gone, his title not per- fected, no peace is given to him. What is the consequence? The robber goes off to Mexico, and when he arrives tbere, he is promoted to some place of distinction, some honorable trust is reposed in him, thereby giving the lie to the pretence that he had come without the warrant of his government to extort money from the citizens. These were the circumstances under which the Texans labored. Their oaths, which they viewed as no light matter, they determined to keep inviolate and inviolable; they re- garded them as binding until the last moment. Not satisfied with these extortions, the Mexicans attempted to station throughout Texas a soldiery. For protection of the citizens! No! From the successive wrongs they had inflicted they apprehended that some rebellion would take place, that the last drop in·the cup of misery would at last run over, and then the colonists would begin to rebel. To rivet their chains upon them, to manacle their free limbs, they attempted to send mercenaries into the heart of Texas, and to control the intercourse of Americans, and to in- carcerate and chain them. They did all these things, and the Americans remonstrated against it, and implored them to con- sider the necessity in which they were placed. They were heed- less of all their imploring petitions, and attempted to send their mercenaries. They were surrounded ; they surrendered ; the Texans gave them their personal liberty and arms and let them return. In a short time, Santa Anna, a chieftain of no ordinary mark-the world may say what it pleases of him in the present age-became the master. He was no common man; with genius and capacity for greatness, he was, and is, an illustrious man.
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