perior inducements for emigrants by giving them at once an interest in the soil; and all who applied, whether companies or individuals, obtained without other charge than surveying and patenting land in proportion to their wants and their means of populating the same.

In addition to this bounty of land, Emigrants to Texas were exempted from taxes and relieved from most other duties imposed upon all other citizens of Mexico. The federal law of 1824 provided that no tax whatever should be levid upon Emigrants to the country, and by the laws of Coahuila and Texas, this privilege was confirmed and extended to 1840, and subsequently by a law of the Mexican congress unless imprerious circumstances should require the prohibition of emigrants from any particular nation.

By the Imperial Colonization law of 1823, the federal law of 1824, and by the Constitution and laws of the State of Coahuila and Texas, the rights and duties of the Colonists were clearly defind. Their rights and privileges were numerous, and among these it will be sufficient to mention the privilege of introducing at the time of their emigration to the country, implements of industry, including machinery, furniture and $2000 worth of merchandise for sale, duty free, with a perpetual guarantee of security of person and property. The true meaning and intent of this last clause has been much censured; but it should be remembered that the Mexican government borrowed from high authority the right of protecting the friendless, and that this policy as yet pursued under the government of Texas is quite as proper as at any former period of the world.

A small quotation from the 22nd Chapter of Samuel presents a case in point, and for that reason is inserted here. "David therefore departed thence, and escaped to

the cave of Adullum, and when his brethren and all his father's house heard it, they went down thither to him."

"And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him, and he became a Captian over them, and there were with him about four hundred men.”

In pursuance of law, Robinson, DeWitt, Burnet, Edwards, Milam, Zavalla and others, obtained grants for large bodies of land for the ostensible purpose of colonizing the county; and had their contracts been fulfilled, the Mexican government would have been content, the settlers would very generally have become independant, and the grantees would have been in lawful possession of such domains as would have enriched them.

On the part of the grantees it was stipulated that they would introduce and locate in the country a definate number of families each; that these families should principally be from the State of Louisiana, and all of them of the Catholic faith; that they would support the Catholic religion, and especially rear children in the faith of that Church, and teach them the Spanish language, and make ample provision for building churches and endowing and supporting good schools.

These conditions are worthy of especial notice, affording as they do, abundant evidence that the Government of Mexico was alive to what they supposed would be the interest and happiness of the colonists, and wished to rear up a wealthy, enlightened and free community, whose feelings would be in harmony with her own; exacting nothing in return but obedience to the laws, and that common gratitude, which is supposed to flow spontanously from most of mankind, when in receipt of extraordinary bounties.

Failing to comply with the stipulated conditions upon

which these large grants of land had been obtained, the Mexican government was beset on one hand by the individual colonists, who justly complained of the want of good faith in the Emprasarios, and these in turn besought the government for an extension of time to fulfill their contracts with the government, as well as the different individuals whom they had allured into the country, and now sought in every possible way to defraud of their quota of land, in entire disregard of the most solemn compact both with these individual emigrants and the government of the country.

In repeated instances the indulgences asked were granted; and it was not until 1827 that the Mexican authorities discovered a viper in their bosom, whose poisoned fangs were to lacerate them at the first moment when this could be done with impunity; and it is believed that we are to look to the unsettled state of the government and alternate triumph of parties for a solution of an otherwise most impolitic policy which went the whole extent for a time of encouraging sedition, by granting as fast as desired almost every thing these adopted citizens required at their hands.

The following lines which I have somewhere seen applied to Kidd, a celebrated Pirate, and circumstances in Texas render them not inappropriate to persons there, and particularly so in respect to two of the Emprasarios (Edwards and Zavalla.)

There is many a one who oft has heard the name of Robert Kidd,
Who cannot tell perhaps a word of him, or what he did;

And though I never saw the man, I lived in his day,
And I'll tell you how his guilt began,

And to what it led the way.

From the earliest American settlement in Texas, garrisons were kept up and supported by the Mexican govern

ment from her own troops, to preserve the lives and property of the colonists without any expense whatever to the settlers, and between the soldiers and citizens all was harmony until the unhappy affair of 1827, at Nacogdoches, growing out of the dishonourable conduct of Edwards, one of the Emprasarios, for colonizing the country. This affair created a great sensation in Mexico; and it was a current rumour, that many citizens of the United States were deeply involved in setting on foot an enterprize for the subjugation of the Mexican Republic; and without being in possession of such conclusive proof as would authorize me to endorse this rumor I am yet of the opinion from certain facts, that it contained much more truth than poetry. At all events the conduct of Edwards was reprehensable in the extreme, and must be so considered by every mind which is not entirely lost to every sense of moral honesty.

Edwards had obtained a grant for a large body of land on precisely the same terms as explained in the foregoing summary of the colonization laws; and without performing a single act contemplated by the government, issued land scrip and sold it to any and every person who would buy. The purchasers were numerous, and eventually detected the fraud, and very properly petitioned the government for redress, at the same time giving the information that the troops in garrison might be wanted to put down a strong party that Edwards was supposed to be the leader of.

It is proper to state here, that no Emprasario's title was incomplete for any part of a grant until one hundred families were located on the same, and every hundred entitled the proprietor to an additional quantity of land; but no parts of one hundred could draw land from the Emprasarios, nor could he for them obtain it from the government

until the even nundred was complete. When this was done, any of the parties could transfer their lands to citizens but not to aliens; and whenever this has been attempted it was not only a fraud upon the government but also upon those who were made to believe such titles were good.

In the case of Edwards, the grant was of course revoked and he being countenanced somewhere he raised the standard of revolt, and soon rallied around it a considerable force, principally Americans and Indians; but the approach of a detachment of the Mexican Army cooled their courage, Edwards fled from the country and his forces dispersed without firing a gun.

In order to a proper understanding of the passing events of the day, it should be constantly borne in mind, that civil war with all its horrors was now raging in Mexico, but not in any way detremental to the interests of the Texans, they being entirely exempt from all participation in the party strifes, and were relieved from contributing in any way towards the support of either. Far removed from the scene of conflict, they were permitted under each dominant party in turn to pursue their avocations in peace and tranquility and under this benevolent system they were fast subduing the wilds and making them blossom as the rose. Cultivated fields teeming with bountiful harvests were richly rewarding the labors of the colonists, and every commodity found a ready market at a high price by the increased demands growing out of the troubles in other parts of Mexico.

Nothing important perplexed the mass of the settlers, but the exactions and general disregard of their obligations by the Emprasarios, and of their happy situation many of the settlers seem to have been well aware. Many of them had, in the language of the lamented Wirt, when