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Our Catholic Heritage in Texas
c1t1zens. When the matter was reported to the Governor, he promptly informed the Ayuntamiento that it had no right to interfere with a commissioner appointed by the Government, and Vidaurri resumed his task. Anxious to :fulfill their contract, Power and Hewetson requested permission in 1834 to introduce colonists from England, Germany, and the United States, as well as Ireland. In view of the repeal a year before of Article XI of the Law of April 6, 1830, which had prohibited the admission of settlers from the United States, no objection was found to this request. A three-year extension was likewise granted to keep the contract in force beyond 1834. Before the Congress of the Republic of Texas declared in 1836 all public lands to be the property of the State, two hundred titles had been issued to families and single men. Power and Hewetson made the site of the old mission of Refugio the center of their colonization enterprise in 1830. At the time the contract was issued in 1828, Mission Refugio was still in operation. After its abandonment as an active mission in 1829, the empresarios petitioned the Government to be allowed to make the site their head- quarters. They agreed to buy the buildings of the abandoned mission and to compensate the owners of the deserted lands. The Governor accepted the proposal on condition the buildings be sold at auction and the owners of the old mission lands be indemnified, received as colonists, and furnished with a yoke of oxen and farming implements. 61 Th8 McMullen-McGloi11 colony. The only other contract for the colonization of European settlers that was fulfilled in part was the one made with James McGloin and John McMullen, natives of Ireland and residents of Matamoros. They decided to establish a colony of Irish settlers in Texas. In August, 1828, they asked the Government of Coahuila and Texas to grant them the lands previously assigned in 1825 to John Purnell and Benjamin Drake Lovell for the establishment of a colony. The grant made in 1825 had not been executed because Purnell had accidentally drowned just as he was boarding a ship for Texas. His partner did nothing to carry out the enterprise. In fact, he asked the Government to release him from the contract in order that McMullen and McGloin might put their plans into execution. Because of the circumstances the request of McMullen and McGloin for the introduction of two hundred families from Ireland was granted. The lands on which the new colony was to be established began at '1Hcndcrson, "Minor Emprcsario Contracts ...," Tke Q11ar/erly, XXXII, u-12.
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