2d. They offer to each colonist one league of land, (4,444 acres) for coming to Texas.

3d. They guarantee to each colonist the privilege of leaving the empire at any time, with all his property, and also the privilege of selling the land which he may have acquired from the Mexican government, (see the colonization law of 1823, more especially articles 1st, 8th and 20th.) These were the inducements and invitations held out to foreigners under the imperial government of Iturbide or Augustin I. In a short time, however, the nation deposed Iturbide, and deposited the supreme executive power in a body of three individuals. This supreme executive power on the 10th of August, 1824, adopted a national colonization law, in which they recognized and confirmed the imperial colonization law with all its guarantees of person and property. It also conceded to the different States the privilege of colonizing the vacant lands within their respective limits. (See national colonization law, articles 1st and 4th.) In accordance with this law, the States of Coahuila and Texas on the 24th March, 1825, adopted a colonization law for the purpose, as expressed in the preamble, of protecting the frontiers, expelling the savages, augmenting the population of its vacant territory, multiplying the raising of stock, promoting the cultivation of its fertile lands, and of the arts and of commerce. In this state-colonization law—the promises to protect the persons and property of the colonists, which had been made in the two preceding national colonization laws, were renewed and confirmed. We have now before us the invitations and guarantees under which the colonists immigrated to Texas. Let us examine into the manner in which these conditions have been complied with, and these flattering promises fulfilled. The donation of 4,444 acres sounds largely at a distance. Considering, however, all the circumstances, the difficulties of taking possession, &c. it will not be deemed an entire gratuity or magnificent bounty. If these lands had been previously pioneered by the enterprise of the Mexican government, and freed from the insecurities which beset a wilderness, trod only by savages—if they had have been situated in the heart of an inhabited region, and accessible to the comforts and necessaries of life—if the government had have been deriving any actual revenue, and if it could have realised a capital from the sale of them—then we admit that the donation would have been unexampled in the history of individual or national liberality. But how lamentably different from all thus was the real state of the case.

The lands granted were in the occupancy of savages and situated in a wilderness, of which the government had never taken possession, and of which it could not with its own citizens ever have taken possession. They were not sufficiently explored to obtain that knowledge of their character and situation necessary to a sale of them. They were shut out from all commercial intercourse with the rest of the world, and inaccessible to the commonest comforts of life; nor were they brought into possession and cultivation by the colonists without much toil and privation, and patience and enterprise, and suffering and blood, and loss of lives from Indian hostilities, and other causes. Under the smiles of a benignant heaven, however, the untiring perseverance of the colonists triumphed over all natural obstacles, expelled the savages by whom the country was infested, reduced the forest into cultivation, and made the desert smile. From this it must appear that the lands of Texas, although nominally given, were in fact really and clearly bought. It may here be premised that a gift of lands by a nation to foreigners on condition of their immigrating and becoming citizens, is immensely different from a gift by one individual to another. In the case of individuals, the donor loses all further claim or ownership over the thing bestowed. But in our case, the government only gave wild lands, that they might be redeemed from a state of nature; that the obstacles to a first settlement might be overcome; that they might be rid of those savages who continually depredated upon the inhabited parts of the nation, and that they might be placed in a situation to augment the physical strength and power and revenue of the republic. Is it not evident that Mexico now holds over the colonized lands of Texas, the same jurisdiction and right of property which all nations hold over the inhabited parts of their territory? But to do away more effectually the idea that the colonists of Texas are under great obligations to the Mexican government for their donations of land, let us examine at what price the government estimated the lands given. Twelve or thirteen years ago, they gave to a colonist one league of laud for coming, he paying the government $30, and this year (1835) they have sold hundreds of leagues of land for $50 each. So that it appears that the government really gave us what in their estimation was worth $20. A true statement of facts then is all that is necessary to pay at once that immense debt of endless gratitude which, in the estimation of the ignorant and interested is due from the colonists to the government. I pass over the toil and suffering and danger which attended the redemption and cultivation of their lands by the colonists, and turn to their civil condition and to the conduct and history of the government. It is a maxim no less venerable for its antiquity than its truth—a maxim admitted and illustrated by all writers on political economy—and one that has been corroborated by experience in every corner of the earth, that miserable is the servitude and horrible the condition of that people whose laws are either uncertain or unknown. I ask, with a defiance of contradiction, if ours is not and has not always been, in Texas, the unhappy condition and miserable bondage spoken of in this maxim? Who of us knows or can by possibility arrive at a knowledge of the laws that govern our property and lives? Who of us is able to read and understand and be entirely confident of the validity of his title to the land he lives on, and which he has redeemed from a state of nature by the most indefatigable industry and perseverance? Who knows whether he has paid on his land all that government exacts, or whether he has not paid ten times as much? Look at the mere mockery of all law and justice which has always prevailed in place of an able and learned judiciary. Alcaldes, most of them unlearned in any system of jurisprudence, and unconversant with legal proceedings of any description, have been elected to administer a code, scattered through hundreds of volumes and written in languages of which they did not understand one word.

Who among us is able to confer with his rulers; to represent his wants and grievances; to ask advice, or recommend salutary changes? Have we had more than one or two organs of communication with the government, and must not they have been omniscient to have always understood the wishes of the people, and incorruptible to have always correctly represented them? Who of us feels or ever has felt any reliance or can place any confidence in governmental matters, or can predict with any sort of certainty what in this respect a day may bring forth? There are thousands of other evils growing out of our present situation, too hourly, universally and bitterly felt to require to be mentioned. Who will say that these things do not exist? Who will say that we have not suffered the harassing uncertainty and miserable bondage here represented?

When the people of the United States commenced their war for independence against Great Britain, the friends of Britain charged them with ingratitude. They said that Britain had founded the colonies at great expense—had increased a load of debt by wars on their account—had protected their commerce, &c. This cannot be said of Mexico. Not one dollar has she spent for Texas—not one Mexican soldier has ever fought by our side in expelling the savages. She has given us no protection whatever; and as allegiance and protection are reciprocal, we have a right on this principle to cast off her yoke. However, in my next I pledge myself to demonstrate that the Mexicans are wholly incapable of self-government, and that on that principle we are bound by the first law of nature—self-preservation—to dissolve all connexion, and take care of ourselves.

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No. II.

I now proceed to demonstrate that the Mexicans are wholly incapable of self-government, and that our liberties, our fortunes and our lives are insecure so long as we are connected with them. At the onset I cannot but advert to the spirit of prophecy and truth with which that unequalled expounder and defender of the rights of man, Mr. Jefferson, spoke more than 18 years ago in regard to this very matter. In a letter to the Marquis de Lafayette, dated Monticello, 14th May, 1817, he says, "I wish I could give you better hopes of our Mexican brethren. The achievement of their independence of old Spain is no longer a question. But it is a very serious one what will then become of them. Ignorance and bigotry, like other insanities, are incapable of self-government. They will fall under military despotism, and become the murderous tools of their respective Bonapartes. No one I hope can doubt my wish to see them and all mankind exercising self-government. But the question is not what we wish—but what is practicable. As their sincere friend, then, I do believe the best thing for them would be to come to an accord with Spain, under the guarantee of France, Russia, Holland, and the United States, allowing to Spain a nominal supremacy, with authority only to keep the peace among them, leaving them otherwise all the powers of self-government, until their experience, their education, and their emancipation from their Priests should prepare them for complete independence." Jefferson's works, vol. 4, page 303. Mr. Jefferson well knew that from the discovery of America to the date of his letter, the Mexicans had unfortunately been the persecuted, pillaged, and priest-ridden slaves of the kings of Spain—a line of kings, with but few exceptions, more inimical to the rights of man, more opposed to the advancement of truth, and light, and liberty, more practised in tyranny, more hardened in crime, more infatuated with superstition, and more benighted with ignorance, than any other monsters that ever disgraced a throne in christendom, since the revival of letters. Yes, humanity shudders, and freedom burns with indignation at a recital of the barbarities and oppressions practised upon the ill-fated Mexicans from the bloody days of Cortes up to the termination of their connexion with Spain. The produce of their cultivated fields was rifled—the natural products of their forests pillaged—the bowels of their earth ransacked, and their suffering families impoverished to glut the grandeur and enrich the coffers of their trans-Atlantic oppressors. To make their miserable servitude less perceptible, they were denied the benefits of the commonest education, and were kept the blind devotees of the darkest and most demoralizing superstition that ever clouded the intellects, or degraded the morals of mankind. From this it is evident, that up to the period of their independence, having been so long destitute of education, so long unaccustomed to think or legislate for themselves, and so long under the complete dominion of their liberty-hating Priests, they must have been totally unacquainted with the plainest principles of self-government. Let us examine what their subsequent opportunities of improvement have been.

At the close of the revolution, Iturbide, by fraud and force, caused himself to be proclaimed Emperor, who after much commotion, was dethroned, banished and shot. After this Victoria was elected President, during all of whose administration the country was distracted with civil wars and conspiracies, as is evidenced by the rebellion and banishment of Montano, Bravo, and many others. Victoria's term having expired, Pedraza was constitutionally elected, but was dispossessed by violence, and Guerero put in his stead. Guerero was scarcely seated before Bustamente with open war deposed him, put him to death and placed himself at the head of the government. Bustamente was hardly in the chair before Santa Anna, warring, as he pretended, for the constitution and for making it still more liberal, dispossessed him by deluging the country in a civil war, the horrors of which have not at this moment ended. Since his accession we have been woful witnesses that nothing but turmoil, anarchy and revolution have overshadowed the land, and that at last he has at one fell stroke, with an armed soldiery, turned congress out of doors, dissolved that body and proclaimed that the constitution is no more. Here, then, we have a lamentable verification of the fears and predictions of that great apostle of human liberty, Mr. Jefferson. His prophecy in relation to the result of their governmental experiment, implies in him an almost superhuman forecast and knowledge of the elements essential to self-government. He knew that they were too ignorant and too much under the dominion of their priests at the period of their declaration, and he but too truly foresaw that owing to the unhallowed ambition of their military aspirants, the country would be too continually distracted with revolutions to admit of their advancement in education or any useful knowledge whatever. Time has developed it. There has been no attention on the part of government to schools or other useful institutions. The present generation are as ignorant and bigoted as the past one, and so will continue each succeeding one to the end of time, unless some philanthropic and enlightened citizen shall arrive at power with a purity of patriotism and reach of intellect unexampled among his countrymen, and with energies of character sufficiently commanding to emancipate the nation from the thraldom of her priests—to curb or kill her countless military aspirants, thereby preventing incessant revolutions, and thereby enabling a new generation to experience the benefits of education and to qualify themselves in other respects for complete self-government. I have now gone through with the administration, or rather mal-administration, of the General Government. It is equally demonstrable that so far as Texas is concerned, there have been equal confusion, insecurity and injustice in the administration of the State governments. Texas, as is known, forms an integral part of the State known by the name of Coahuila and Texas. During the past year there were three persons claiming and fighting for the office of Governor of this State. There was no session of the legislature at the regular period, on account of this civil war, and fifteen officers of the federal troops elected a governor of their own over the head of the one elected by the people. At an extraordinary time the legislature was convoked, and fraudulently sold for a thousandth part of their value, millions of acres of our public domain. This legislature was finally dispersed by the threats of the General Government, and our Governor and one of the members were, on their retreat, arrested and imprisoned by the troops of the permanent army—leaving us involved in chaotic anarchy. Do not these facts conclusively demonstrate an incapability of self-government on the part of the Mexicans? Do they not cry aloud for an immediate dissolution of all connexion with them as the only rock of our salvation? Yes, the vital importance of a declaration of Independence is as clearly indicated by them as if it were "written in sunbeams on the face of heaven."

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