The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 43, July 1939 - April, 1940 Page: 213
576 p. : ill., maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Joseph Eve, U. S. Charge d'Afaires to Texas
be bound to say that although they have no Clays, Websters,
Crittendens or Calhouns, yet take them as a body and I believe
for their number they are equal to any legislative body in the
United States; This remark ought not to surprise you strang[e]
as it is, when we know that it is the age and the country in which
we live and the circumstances with which we are surrounded that
calls fourth the latent energies of the mind; That the drone
robs the hive while the industrious enterprising bee risks every
thing to provide for the famaly, so with the human famaly, the
bould the fearless and the enterprising emigrate to new countries
they engage in revolutions while the slouthful the timid and indo-
lent remain in the old hive. I have given you the goods I will
also give you the ills and the draw backs to this country The
Government is insolvent daily threatened with an invasion from
Mexico, with not a soldier belonging to the government nor a
military post to protect the frontiers having discharged their whole
military force last spring for the want of the means to keep
them in service; The Indians are daily robing and murdering
the inhabitants on the frontiers and frequently in sight and in
hearing of this City. Since Congress has been in session the
Cannon was stationed in the streets more than a week with the
expectation of an attack from the Indians. The water near the
coast is intolerably bad, the heat of the summers sun is very
oppressive and debilitating to body and mind and on the best
lands fever will prevail. With these drawbacks were I a young
man with the prospects of a famaly of children, I have no hesita-
tion in saying that I should settle here, but at my age with no
famaly but my wife, and never having coveted a fortune it would
be great folly in me to give up all my feelings for my country and
the friends of my early life for what I might make here. Still I
pity many of my Kentucky acquaintances who have not good land
enough to bury themselves and famalies when the [y] could get as
much here as they could desire and when two no man who can
have health if he uses prudence industry and economy can fail
to make a fortune
When I left Kentucky I vainly hoped that I should have some
respite from the political and pecuniary strains with which I had
been so long beset, and that I should feel like a mariner who had
got in sight of a safe port after having been buffeted by storms
and huricanes upon a rough sea without much ballast sail or
rudder liable at every moment to be capsized by the waves or
straned [stranded] upon the beach; and that I could look back
with composure, and pleasure upon the past, seeing myself in port
and my friends sailing upon a smoth and unruffled sea how vain
the hope, when I see from every paper that the storm has again
arisen my friends likely to sink again how then can I feel calm213
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 43, July 1939 - April, 1940, periodical, 1940; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101111/m1/227/: accessed May 5, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.