Lexinton October 9 1824
Dear Friend,
I have long wished to answer your kind and welcome letter but
this is the first opportunity I have had—
In knowing as I feel you do my Dear Lost One you can feel with
and for me Oh Austion! how severely has God afflicted me—I know
not how I should have seppoarted it if I had not been with him and
been taught to anticipate that, or wors—for two years he was changed
Oh! how much changed both in health and spirits, how oft has my
heart bleed in beholding the harassed and agonized expression of
that dear countenance—I saw to planly saw his manly heart would
brake under the acumulated strooks of misfortune and the prospect
of black poverty—
You wish me to send out an agen, I do not think it would be
advisable in the present state of things to do so, every thin[g] else
is lost to me and my poor Children and though I have All ways
viewed that as a very distant prospect, still it is sum thin to cling
to. Having every reliance on the goodness of your heart I am
perfectly willing to resian the welfare of my Fatherless Children to
you, but for fear of accidents to your self, I think you ought at once
to secure to my children by will or in sum other way their share or
portion of the greant.
I hav returned to Kentucky but Alas! with what dreary prospects
no one to look upto for support or comfort, my friends are nearly all
as destitute as myself if I could procure the means of commenceing
house keeping I could make myself independent by taking boarders.
Never on earth shall I be reconciled to my lot if I can not make my
children independent I have five of them to struggle for, and
willingly would I toil night and day for them—On his account who
never sufferd me to know what it was to want—write often—
May God in his infinite mercy protect you and yours from the
hevy misfortune of your afflicted friend—
G. A. Hawkins
[Addressed:] Stephen F Austin Esq Brassos Province of Texas
J. E. B. Austin