WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1837
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reference to contingencies. For it is not possible to determine what are to be her future relations to the civilized nations of the globe. Blessed with the soil the most fertile, and climate the most delightful and salubrious, Texas must attract the attention of the whole commercial and manufacturing nations of the world. Her cotton, sugar, indigo, wines, peltries, livestock, and the precious minerals will all become objects of mercantile enterprise and activity. .Nor can we lose sight of the important production of the live oak. It is but reasonable to say that four fifths of all that specie of timber, now in the world, is to be found growing in Texas, while many millions worth of it is daily decaying on ·our culti- vated fields. To establish such intercourse with nations friendly to us, as will induce them to seek our market with their manufactures and commodities, and receive from us in exchange our productions, will become our most imperative duty. Texas with her superior natural advantages must become a point of attraction, and the policy of establishing with her the earliest relations of friendship and commerce will not escape the eye of statesmen. England has not disregarded our situation this far, nor can we believe from the indications already manifested by her, that she is to regard our prosperity with unkind feelings of suspicion or indifference. Should our resources be regulated by a wise and politic system of legislation, we must remain an independent and become a prosperous people. Our relations to Mexico since the last session of congress have undergone no important change, nor have overtures b~en made by either nation. Texas confident that she can sustain the rights for which she has contended, is not willing to invoke the mediation of other powers; while Mexico, blind to her interest and her future ex- istence, seems determined on protracting the war, without regard to her internal commotions. Revolution is stalking abroad through- out her land while she is unable to defend her frontiers against the incursions of the bands of predatory Indians on the frontier of the Rio Grande from Santa Fe to Matamoras. Early in last winter a correspondence was opened by the secretary of state with the Mexican Consul at New Orleans containing propositions to exchange prisoners, so far as the number of _Texians would
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