Page:John O. Meusebach - Answer to Interragatories.djvu/10

 rights in the Colonization Contract which they held with the Republic of Texas. The Company undertook to supply the emigants contracted for, and to fulfill the other conditions of the grant concession. (White's brief, p. 4.)

They did not know what they bought. They undertook to fulfill what was impossible to fulfill. They did not have the means nor the time to fulfill it. Neither of the contracting parties nor their agents had ever seen a particle of the land in question. The territory set aside for settlement was more than three hundred miles from the coast more, than one hundred and fifty miles outside of all settlements, and in the undisturbed possession of hostile Indians. The government had promised no aid to take it out of the hands of the Indians. It had to be conquered by force or by treaty. With the money paid to Fisher & Miller, which after all was not much over $9000, the Company could have bought 180,000 acres (more or less) of good titled lands or headrights without onerous conditions attached tothem, and could have located their colonies within or right near to the settlements without over-hastening their operations. I used twice the expression "head over heels," because a simple study of the wording of the colonization contract, of the laws of Texas, and of the land market in Texas at that time, would have warned the Company to keep their hands off from contracting blindly for onerous colonization contracts of other parties.

The time allowed for the importation of one-third of the families intended to be introduced, DIRECTLY FROM EUROPE, was only eighteen months, and nine months twenty-one days had already elapsed when the contract was made with Fisher & Miller.

It is true that by a joint resolution of the