Page:John O. Meusebach - Answer to Interragatories.djvu/25

 banker, for the same credit, was dated 17th August, 1846, and arrived at New Braunfels on the 7th of September 1846. If the same amount had been sent one year before, in September, 1845, when the money was due or overdue, probably the most, if not all, of the inconveniences, troubles and misfortunes would have been avoided.

The floating debt, originally light as a snow flake, in comparison to the extensive and expensive business, had been swelling up to an avalanche; the daily expense for the entertainment of the emigrants in provisions and goods, as promised, till the first and second crops, had not materially diminished, because the number lost by sickness, death and dispersing, had been refilled by the emigrants arriving in 1846. That item alone had swelled again, during the year 1846, to $l00,000 at a rough estimate. But new, unbounded expenses, resulting from unbounded promises, had to be added to it.—I have anticipated events, and will have to return to Galveston, where I was, in February, in the greatest distress. The main thing was to keep the emigrants in provisions and to get provisions on a credit. Next, any team that could be directed to Indianola was engaged at any price.

But unhappily, at that time, winter of 1845 and spring of 1846, soldiers and, perhaps, equipments and provisions for the army of General Taylor were shipped to Lavaca, and moved from thence, by land, towards the Mexican frontier. The United States government could and did easily outbid our offers to the wagoners seeking freight at Lavaca and Indianola. Transportation was delayed for that reason, not a cent being at disposal to buy teams of our own. And that winter being extraordinarily wet at the coast, sickness broke out both at Lavaca and Indianola. The unacclimated emigrants suffered the most. 321 died at Indianola and on the road (children