tenant Colonel Ugartechea, and, consequently, we were compelled to oppose them all.

"Therefore we attacked Fort Velasco on the 26th of last month, with 112 farmers, hastily collected, without discipline, and badly armed; and, after an obstinate and bloody engagement of eleven hours, it surrendered, on the terms expressed in the enclosed copy of the capitulation-every article of which has been strictly complied with on our part, besides furnishing the provisions needed for the troops."

Representatives from the different Ayuntamientos were convened at San Felipe, by whom the causes of the disturbances were fully investigated, and a formal explanatory statement drawn up and presented to Mexia, to be by him transmitted to General Santa Anna. This statement, after reciting the arbitrary measures of Colonel Bradburn, expressed the earnest desire of the colonists that the government should be restored to its constitutional basis, according to the principles of the Federal republican party headed by Santa Anna; and conveyed their declaration that their only aim was to sustain the Constitution and the laws, which the military had violated. Professing to be satisfied with the explanations and assurances offered by the Texans, Mexia sailed with his fleet to Matamoras, taking with him, as a re-inforcement to the army of Santa Anna, the garrison of the dismantled fort at Velasco, and such other Mexican troops as were disposed to act against Bustamente. Piedras, the commandant at Nacogdoches, declined Mexia's invitation to join the "Liberating Army" in Mexico,

which afforded the inhabitants of that place a pretext for expelling him. Declaring in favour of the Vera Cruz Plan, the Nacogdoches settlers attacked the garrison in their "quartel," and after protracted skirmishing, in which three Texans were killed and seven wounded, and eighteen Mexicans killed and twenty-two wounded, the latter evacuated their quarters during the night, and retreated towards the river Angelina. Pursued by a party of twenty mounted men, who killed two of their number and wounded several, their leader, Piedras, proposed a temporary cessation of hostilities; as it was late in the evening, he was allowed to occupy the house of an Anglo-American without molestation from the Texans. The next morning, the Mexicans, terrified by a deceptive report of the approach of a large hostile force, surrendered at discretion, and, after being disarmed, were permitted to continue their route to San Antonio de Bexar. Other garrisons withdrew into the interior about the same time. The citizens of Bexar and the governor of the State openly declared for the Plan of Vera Cruz; political unanimity generally prevailed, and, in August, 1832, Texas was free from military domination and internal strife.

The Texan colonists were exposed to severe trials at the close of this year. Hardly had they been relieved from the aggressions of the Mexican soldiery, when they were threatened with a formidable irruption of frontier Indians. Against these savages their own moral and physical resources constituted the sole means of defence, with the exception of less than seventy soldiers, maintained by the citizens of Bexar.

The Bustamente administration, pressed by Santa Anna and the Constitutionalists, was unable to spare either money or men from the exigencies of civil war. The calamities of the settlers were farther increased by the ravages of the cholera, which swept off many valuable members of the struggling community. Among the victims of this terrible disease was John Austin, with his aged father, who had travelled from his distant home to witness the prosperity of his fugitive son.

A strong conviction was now impressed upon many of the Anglo-Americans, that without the possession of full and independent powers of local administration, their social progress must be grievously retarded, and their rights exposed to constant invasion from contending factions and their ambitious chiefs. Under this persuasion, a Convention of the people was summoned to meet at San Felipe de Austin, where it assembled in October, 1832, for the purpose of framing a memorial to the Supreme Government, for the repeal of the invidious law of the 6th of April, 1830, and for the separation of Texas from Coahuila.

It was barely possible that, by conferring an independent State Legislature upon Texas, the Mexican government might have retained it as a member of the National Federation, but it must have been perfectly obvious to all who had an accurate idea of Anglo-American character and training, that, with the growing power of the colonists, would arise an irrepressible impatience of the loose and anarchical rule which Mexico inherited from her European parent. The local administration was

to the last degree imperfect and inefficient. The laws which affected life and liberty, and regulated the civil relations of the settlers, were published in the Spanish language and dispersed in cumbrous compilations in remote districts. The capital of the Federation was distant 1200 miles from their southern frontier—the capital of the State of Coahuila and Texas, about 500. In the latter were the principal public officers, and courts of appeal from the local authorities, and to obtain a hearing was an affair of great difficulty-sometimes not accomplished until after a delay of years. Public education had been neglected, the narrow and meagre plans recommended by the legislature of Coahuila and Texas having remained unexecuted. By a decree of the 13th of May 1829, it was resolved, that a school of "mutual instruction on the Lancasterian plan" should be established in each department of the State, to consist of 150 pupils each, who were to be instructed in "reading, writing, arithmetic, the principles of the Catholic religion, and all Ackerman's catechisms of the arts and sciences." Another decree, dated the 13th of April, 1830, empowered the executive to establish six primary schools, until those on the Lancasterian system, mentioned in the preceding decree, could be organised.

Public spirit and funds were wanting to enforce these petty enactments, as well as others of a more aspiring character. The Texan representatives formed a powerless minority in the State Legislature, most of whose laws betrayed a Mexican origin. Notwithstanding various notable devices for

raising a revenue, such as the leasing of the "cockpit location of the whole State" for five years, levying a tax on billiard tables "of twenty-four dollars per annum, to be paid in three equal instalments in advance," and an impost of two per cent. on the circulation of money, "the collection to be made in each town at the time of removal of any amount of money, whether the same be destined to a place within or without the State,' with pecuniary penalties for larceny and official malversation, cigar and other monopolies, &c.,-the treasury of Coahuila and Texas was so deficient in funds to meet "the most urgent expenses," that a decree was passed suspending the office of Government Councillor until the State should be able to defray the expense thereof, and limiting the payment of the Vice-Governor to occasions when he might be called upon, by extraordinary circumstances, such as sickness and death, to discharge the duties of Governor. For the same cause, the department or district Chiefs were suspended from the exercise of their functions, with the exception of the Supreme Political Chief of Texas. A decree of the 2nd of April, 1829, attributed the declining state of the internal trade in a great measure to "the influx of foreigners into the markets," and prohibited merchants belonging to nations that "had not ratified treaties with Mexico" from selling goods by retail. This wise enactment gave place to another, on the 13th of May, 1829, which prohibited "foreign merchants of whatever nation, not naturalised in

* Decreto 3, dado en el Saltillo, á 31 de Julio de 1827.

VOL. II.

C