Page:John O. Meusebach - Answer to Interragatories.djvu/32

 for, and that the trouble of making new contracts in Texas could probably be avoided by making the first contracts in Germany in the right form, present them to the authorities in Texas, and claim a direct title from them for half the emigrant's land, as provided in the colonization contract with President Sam Houston. But aside from the form of the contract, there is not the least doubt but that the intention of the Company to give to each family only 320 acres and to each single man only 160 acres, and to keep the surplus for themselves, was fully understood by both parties. No family nor single man were accepted as emigrants of the Company, or shipped by them, unless they had signed that original contract, of which I have annexed a copy, and the agent of the Company, either at the shipping places or at headquarters in Germany signed invariably the same contract with the emigrants. These contracts, signed by both parties, were kept on file in Germany, I believe. The consent of the emigrant is manifested by his signature under the contract. The terms, conditions and inducements were broadly and fully proclaimed and explained in all the printed pamphlets and advertisements of the Company, and in the public newspapers in Germany. They were well known to the emigrants before they emigrated, and on arriving in Texas. Under an act of the Legislature dated March 20, 1848, Wm. F. Evans was appointed first Commissioner of the German Colonies, and he issued the first land certificates June 6, 1848, for the full quantity of land which the Republic of Texas had allowed for each family or single man. In the same way the Commissioner for Peters Colony had issued headrights for the emigrants, and the eminent jurist. Judge Paschal, the deceased husband and father of the plaintiffs in this case, has fought out from the Legislature an indemnification of 1700 sections of land for the contractors of Peters