San Filipe de Austin March 28 1830
My Dear Brother and Sister,
I wrote you many letters during the months of Decr, and Jany.
they were in substance all of the same tenor. I informed you that
it was my advise and my wish that you should remove here as
soon as possible with all your family and property and that I had
petitioned the Governor of the state to grant you Eleven Leagues
of land. I now have the pleasure to inform you that I yesterday
received the grant from the Governor, he has had the goodness
to grant to James F. Perry and to his wife Emily Margarita Austin
Eleven Leagues of land to be selected on any vacant lands in Austin's
colony and he has issued all the necessary orders to the General
land Commissioner to give a patent in due form as the colonization
law requires. The grant is however subject to the condition that
you remove and settle here with your family within two years from
the first day of last January. In eleven Mexican leagues there is
within a fraction of forty eight thousand eight hundred and thirty
acres english measure. Under the present law as it now stands
you cannot sell any of this land, untill after several years, but
I did not ask for it with an expectation that you wished to sell
any of it now. My object was to secure a fortune for your children
and this was the reason why I asked for it in both of your names,
by the laws of this country the husband and wife can hold
property separately. This grant as it now stands belongs to both of
you, one half to each, so that my sisters children by Bryan, as her
heirs will be entitled to their full share.
I have now done all that I can do. You have got the highest
grant that can be given by the laws of this country to any one
which is eleven Leagues as you will see by examining the 12th
article of the national colonization law of August 18 1824 in the
translations which I sent you. It is what very few people can get,
and it will be trifling with fortune not to accept it.
You are allowed two years to remove, but I most earnestly advise
you to remove immediately. I shall expect to eat my next Christmas
dinner with you all. do not disappoint me. The object is of too
much importance to be neglected. You have no idea at all of this
country, nor of the great emigration that is daily coming to it, nor
of the character of the emigrants We are getting the best men,
the best kind of settlers, pay no attention to rumors and silly
reports but push on as fast as possible. We have nothing to fear
from this Govt, nor from any other quarter except from the United
States of the North. If that govt, should get hold of us and
introduce its land system etc etc thousands who are now on the move
and who have not yet secured their titles, would be totally ruined,
The greatest misfortune that could befall Texas at this moment
would be a sudden change by which many of the emigrants would
be thrown upon the liberality of the Congress of the United States
of the north—theirs would he a most forlorn hope. I have no idea
of any change unless it be effected by arbitrary force, and I have
too much confidence in the magninimity of my native country
to suppose that its govt, would resort to that mode of extending
its already unweildy frame over the territory of its friend and
neighbor and sister republic. All the families you bring with you
shall be received by me so far as my authority and my duty will
permit. You will of course bring non nor suffer none to come in
company with you who are not good honest citizens, and above all,
you will exclude drunkards. I have been heretofore so much troubled
with that beastly portion of the human race, that my dislike to them
has grown into a very strong prejudice.
I need not say to you that I am ready to do all that a friend and
relation can do consistent with his means and situation, to benefit
all my poor relations, or all my rich ones, if any such there be—
Where are Horace Austin's children, James Austin's etc, etc. I can
advance them nothing in money. I am myself poor as to disposable
means and am embarrassed with debts, but I can benifit them in
getting land, and the day is not far distant when Texas land will
be worth money.
I have raised the name of my family to a respectable standing in
this country, and my relations need not be ashamed to own that they
are my relations. I hope that my heart is what it always was—too
much alive perhaps to sensibility, but never deaf to the calls of
justice or of friendship, or of my kindred.
Love to my little nephews I hope soon to see them and I hope to
live untill I see them above the reach of poverty. I saw my little
boy Stephen a few days ago. he is with his mother at Brazoria,
he was near death a month since, but has recovered and is getting
hearty. Eliza sends her love to you, and will make your house her
home when you get here. I have told her that you would make
her welcome. As for me, the whole colony is my home. My
business necessarily requires my presence in many parts of it. I have
just returned from the woods and in a few days go out again to
Galveston Bay to locate and survey your land. When you all get
on we will settle down somewhere all together.
Remember me to Judge Carr and tell him I recd the box of fruit
seed he had the goodness to send me for which I sincerely thank
him. do not fail to bring all kind of fruit seeds and some roots.
Remember me to all the Perry family to my good friend Bruffee
and to all others who have any remembrance of their old neighbor.
Young Hinkson has settled here and has selected a good tract of
land on tide water of Matagorda Bay. Let me know as soon as
possible when you will be here that I may make my calculations.
S. F. Austin [Rubric]
[Addressed:] Mr. James F. Perry Potosi Missouri