Columbia Tennessee
February 15th 1833.
Dr. Sir
This letter will be handed you by my friend Col. William K Hill
of this place, he is on a visit to Texas for the purpose of making a
permanent location for himself and family; You will find him a
gentleman of intelligence, and every way worthy of your attention
and friendship, he has been for several years clerk to the Senate of
this State And discharged his duties with approved ability and skill;
My name may almost be forgotten to you, but I anticpate it will
call up some pleasant recollections of days long gone by, days that
were probably the happiest of our lives, for it is true that the days of
our boyhood are freer from care, pain, disappointment, and regrets
than those that succeed them—
I well remember the thoughtlessness and gayety of your life when
boarding at my fathers in Kentucky and going to school to old
Wilson ; you were then happy, particularly so when you had your flute
in your hand, and seemed not to care for the future, Your
pursuits, thoughts, feelings, and all, are now changed; Whether your
pleasure or happiness may have been promoted by the vicissitude—
or not you can easily answer. But enough of moralizing. I see from
the papers of the day that you anticipate a convention in Texas,
and intend probably to declare yourselves Independent of Mexico.
I heartily wish you may succeed in the attempt and be enabled to
maintain that Independence— If you should succeed and
establish a literal Republic, thousands in the West would immediately
become citizens of it.
I have long had a great desire to settle in Texas, but am restrained
from doing so by reason of the form of the government principally,
I most cordially wish you health, happiness and prosperity,—I
should be much gratified to receive from you a detailed statement of
the views and objects of the citizens in having a convention and
declaring themselves Independent, is it any part of their object to
connect themselves with the United States, or do they intend to form
a seperate Independent government unconnected with any other.
Will you please answer me.
Charles W. Webber
[Addressed:] Stephen F. Austin Esq. Province of Texas