Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/309

 but on the contrary, was treated with every incivility and indignity that could be offered to an ordinary criminal or pirate." In addition to the prisoners sent with Col. Wharton, a vessel had been chartered and upwards of sixty prisoners were sent h-om Galveston to Matamoras. Those of the officers and citizens who had not escaped were subsequently released, after a cruel and rigid confinement of months. The ground on which they were released is unknown to the Executive, inasmuch as no communication accompanied their return.

To speculate upon the course which Mexico intends to pursue would be idle and ridiculous. Since the first invitation of the Anglo-Saxon race to this country, the narrative of her conduct would be but the history of her perfidy, and a manifestation of our wrongs. The first settlers of Texas entered a wilderness, and expelled the savage cannibals who had maintained this fair region against the boasted power of Mexico. The enterprise of the people, with the accumulation of plenty, excited the cupidity of their Government; and persons were sent among us to grant pretended titles to lands, while they extorted from industry its honest gains, and left us in a situation liable to further demands and extortion, without a right to the soil which had been pledged to us by every legal and political solemnity. The form of government under which we were invited, and for which the citizens of Texas periled their lives, in eighteen hundred and thirty-two, was the constitution of eighteen hundred and twenty-four. It was changed and the iron yoke of slavery was tendered in its stead. Oppression begot resistance, and rebellion gave us liberty and independence.

It is vain to suppose that Mexico, imbecile as she is, and distracted by internal factions, can ever reconquer the fair region of Texas, and maintain her conquest. The same spirits who have subdued the wilderness, and repelled the boasted invincibility of Mexico, yet live. Our soil is consecrated by the blood of martyrs, and we will defend it or perish!

A blind infatuation may impel Mexico to another attempt to subjugate freemen, and precipitate her own catastrophe—while wisdom and a just policy might enable her to improve her own social and political relations, and establish her Government on a rational and firm foundation. Were it possible for Mexico to drive from the soil of Texas, or massacre the race which now inhabit its bright regions, their last faint whisper, arousing their kindred of the United States of the North, would be the death knell of Mexico, and their chivalric and daring enterprise would not alone prompt them to avenge the wrongs of brothers, but would impel them to loftier achievements, and Mexico herself become an object of conquest. Let Mexico then counsel with her safety!!!

The cause of Texas being just, let us look with heartfelt reverence to the great Arbiter of Nations, and by our virtues as a people, endeavor to insure a continuance of His benefactions.

(Signed),