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Our Catholic Heritage in T e:xas
Questioned as to his opinion on granting separate statehood to Texas, he voiced disapproval, but promised Austin to use his influence with the Legislature of Coahuila and Texas to have the necessary reforms enacted into law so as to afford relief to the settlers. Austin was agreeably surprised and quite satisfied. Although separate statehood had been refused, he felt that if the settlers were rid of the most irritating abuses, the cause for their dissatisfaction would be removed. With immigration renewed, he reasoned, the · colonies would grow stronger and be in better position to obtain their ultimate goal- separate statehood. Austin was cheerful when he left Mexico City on December 10, 1833. He did not know that his letter of October to the Ayuntamiento of San Antonio had been construed as an invitation to rebel against the Government and on that account sent to the Governor at Monclova, who forwarded it to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Mexico, who, in turn, dispatched it to Acting President Gomez Farias. The angry interview with Austin immediately came back to his mind. He issued an order at once for Austin's arrest. Blissfully unaware of what had transpired, Austin arrived in Sal- tillo on January 3, 1834, and went to see the Commandant General to discuss some of the reforms contemplated. He was confronted with the order for his arrest, taken to Monterrey, then conducted to Mexico City, where he arrived on February 13. Austin was finally released on bond on Christmas day, 1834. Not until June 22, 1835, was he at long last entirely free, but he had to wait another three weeks before he could secure a passport to return to Texas by way of Vera Cruz and New Orleans. More than eighteen months had elapsed since his arrest in Saltillo. The news of Austin's arrest had not precipitated a crisis, because a number of letters hurriedly written arrived at the same time. To all his friends Austin had written the same request: "I hope there will be no excitement about my arrest . . . all I can be accused of is that I have labored arduously ... perhaps ... passionately and with more impatience and irritation than I ought to have shown, to have Texas made a state of the Mexican Confederation, separate from Coahuila. . . . This is no crime." His friends trusted him and were willing to follow his advice, and his enemies did not care what happened to him. Houston frankly admitted he was "provoked" by Austin's pleas for peace.
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