counter-revolution in the interior once smothered, the whole fury of the contest will be poured on Texas. She is principally populated with North- Americans. To expel these from its territory, and parcel it out among the instruments of its wrath, will combine the motive and the means for consummating the schemes of the President Dictator. Already, we are denounced, proscribed, outlawed, and exiled from the country. Our lands, peaceably and lawfully acquired, are solemnly pronounced the proper subject of indiscriminate forfeiture, and our estates of confiscation. The laws and guarantees under which we entered the country as colonists,tempted the unbroken silence, sought the dangers of the wilderness, braved the prowling Indian, erected our numerous improvements, and opened and subdued the earth to cultivation, are either abrogated or repealed, and now trampled under the hoofs of the usurper's cavalry.
Why, then, should we longer contend for charters, which, we are again and again told in the annals of the past, were never intended for our benefit? Even a willingness on our part to defend therm has provoked the calamities of exterminating warfare. Why contend for the shadow, when the substance courts our acceptance? The price of each is the same. War—exterminating war—is waged: and we have either to fight or flee.
We have indulged sympathy, too. for the condition of many whom, we vainly flattered ourselves, were opposed, in common with their adopted brethren, to the extension of military domination over the domain of Texas. But the siege of Bexar has dissolved the illusion. Nearly all their physical force was in the line of the enemy and armed with rifles. Seventy days' occupation of the fortress of Goliad, has also abundantly demonstrated the general diffusion among the Creole population of a like attachment to the institutions of their ancient tyrants. Intellectually enthralled, and strangers to the blessings of regulated liberty, the only philanthropic service which we can ever force on their acceptance, is that of example. In doing this, we need not expect or even hope for their co-operation. When made the reluctant, but greatly benefited recipients of a new. invigorating, and cherishing policy—a policy tendering equal, impartial, and indiscriminate protection to all; to the low and the high, the humble and the well-born, the poor and the rich, the ignorant" and the educated, the simple and the shrewd—then, and not before, will they become even useful auxiliaries in the work of political or moral renovation.
It belongs to the North-Americans of Texas to set this bright, this cheering, this all-subduing example. Let them call together their wise men. Let them be jealous of the experienced, of the speculator, of every one anxious to serve as a delegate, of every one hungry for power, or soliciting office: and of all too who have thus far manifested a willingness to entertain or encourage those who have already tired the patience of the existing Council with their solicitations and attendance. Those who seek are seldom ever the best qualified to fill an office. Let them discard, too, the use of names calculated only to deceive and bewilder, and return like men to the use of words whose signification is settled and universallv acknowledged. Let them call their assembly, thus made up, a Convention; and let this convention, instead of declaring for "the
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