Our Catholic Heritage in Texas
location would be ideal for a naval school. "I do not desire that Mexico should become a maritime power," he wrote, "but I wish she would cease to depend on foreigners to command the few ships she has ... indispensable to the protection of her coastwise trade." 49 Unfortunately, the wise recommendations of Almonte, previously pressed by Austin, came too late. Left so long free from all obligations, the colonists resented the termination of the exemption granted them by the first colonization law. In 1832 the Ayuntamiento of San Felipe, reflecting the general desire of the settlers, petitioned the Government to exempt them from duties for an additional five-year period. The list of the duty-free goods re- quested was rather extensive. It included foodstuffs, machinery, tools, and implements; carts and wagons; ready-made clothes, shoes, and hats; household furniture and kitchenware; tobacco; lead, powder, and am- munition; and books, paper, and stationery. Although the petition was repeated by the conventions of 1832 and 1833, and by Austin in Mexico prior to his imprisonment, all efforts to secure an extended exemption proved futile. 50 Tl~ Law of April 6, r830. The Colonization Law of April 6, 1830, which may be said to constitute the beginning of the strained rela- tions culminating in the independence of Texas, was directed, not against law-abiding colonists already in the country, but to the safe- guarding of Texas as a state of Mexico. The recommendations of Teran in this regard were enacted into law and he was appointed its administrator. Teran tried earnestly to enforce the various provisions of the law as fairly as possible in order to prevent a rupture. He in- terpreted every article in favor of the colonists as much as circumstances permitted. Nevertheless, "The Law of April 6, 1830, was," as Dr. Barker writes, "a turning point in the relations of the Texan colonists and the government. On the one side, its passage marked the culmination of the government's slowly crystallizing conviction that the policy of al- lowing unrestricted immigration from the United States was a dangerous error. On the other side, in spite of Austin's efforts to persuade the colonists that there was much good in the law, I am convinced it gave the first serious shock to Austin's own confidence in the good will of
49 /bid., 203. SOBarker, 1,/erico and Teras, 1821-1835, 111.
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