Santa Anna.
But the Vice-President, Gomez Farias, had no time to listen to so trifling a thing as a memorial from Texas colonists. As for President Santa Anna, he was shut up in his country-house (Manga de Clavo) laying plans for overthrowing the Mexican constitution and making himself dictator.
Sick at heart over his vain attempts to get a hearing from the government, Austin started home. But a letter which he had written to Texas, advising the people to organize a separate state without further appeal to Mexico, had been sent back to Farias as a treasonable document. Austin was arrested at Saltillo, taken back to the city of Mexico, and put in prison, where he remained for nearly two years. A part of that time he was in solitary confinement.
During his imprisonment he kept a diary. He says of himself on one of these loose pencil-written leaves: “In my first exploring trip in Texas, in 1821, I had a very good old man with me, who had been raised on the frontier, and was a very good hunter. We had not been many days in the wilderness before he told me: ‘You are too impatient to make a hunter.’ Scarce a day passed that he did not say to me: ‘You are too impatient—you wish to go too fast.’ Before my trip was ended I saw the benefit of his maxim, and I determined to adopt it as a rule in settling the colony which I was then about to commence in Texas.... I believe the greatest error I ever committed was in departing from that rule as I did in the city of Mexico in October, 1833. I lost patience at the delays in getting the business of Texas dispatched, and in a moment of impatience wrote an imprudent, and perhaps an intemperate, letter to the council at San Antonio.” “How happy,” he says in another place, “how happy I could have been on a farm, ... free from all the cares and difficulties that now surround me. But I thought it was my duty to obey the call of the people and go to Mexico as their agent.”
In October, 1834, he was admitted to a conference with Santa Anna, who promised to “meditate maturely” the repeal of some of Bustamente’s laws. He expressed so much love for Texas that Austin wrote to his people in a burst of thankfulness, “All is going well.” But he was himself still detained, and it was not until September, 1835, that he was allowed to return to Texas.
The Texans, despite Austin’s letter of assurance, knew that all was not going well. They were, in fact, so convinced that all was going ill that they met in the different towns and organized committees of safety for protection against the Indians (who had become very troublesome), and to take charge of all public matters. At a meeting held in San Felipe October 1, 1834, it was openly proposed to make Texas a separate state without the consent of Mexico. But this step was for a time postponed.
The next year the situation was still more gloomy. Santa Anna’s congress passed a decree disarming all Texans. General Martin Perfecto de Cos was ordered from Mexico to Texas with a body of five hundred soldiers to enforce the decree, and to punish those who had refused to obey, not the just laws of the Mexican Republic, but the tyrannical edicts of Bustamente and Santa Anna.
At the same time a courier was arrested with dispatches from Ugartechea at San Antonio to the commandant at Anahuac. These dispatches were opened and read at San Felipe. They stated that a strong force would soon reach Anahuac from Mexico.
These things caused great uneasiness and indignation. Another meeting was held in San Felipe. Among those who addressed the people there assembled was R. M. Williamson (called three-legged Willie, because of his carrying a crutch). He counseled resistance. “Our country, our property, our liberty, and our lives,” he said, “are all involved in the present contest between the states and the military.”
In the midst of the excitement Austin reached home. He was welcomed almost as one given up by the tomb.