The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 8, July 1904 - April, 1905 Page: 147
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De Witt's Colony.
are by our present unprotected situation, liable to be cut off by the
savage foe! consequently, unable to render any physical assist-
ance, if so required, to our brethren of Mexico, of Vera Cruz, or of
Texas.
Humbly trusting, that our precarious condition will be a suffi-
cient excuse for our neutrality-not only to you, Sir, who know
our state experimentally, and who have more than once expressed
a fatherly solicitude for our preservation-but to that Government
you represent, on whose paternal care and munificent generosity
we implicitly rely !1
But when, shortly afterward, delegates were called to the con-
vention which assembled at San Felipe for the same purpose, Gon-
zales sent Henry S. Brown and Claiborne Stinnet as her repre-
sentatives.2
As has been indicated, the government regarded this conven-
tion with extreme disfavor, which was expressed in letters to the
ayuntamientos of Austin, Goliad, Liberty, Nacogdoches, and Gon-
zales.3 In reply to the letter received at Gonzales, Ezekiel
Williams, the alcalde, wrote:
We acknowledge the receipt of your Lordship's communication
of the 22nd of November, 1832, in which you request this body to
say how far they have taken part in the convention held in Austin's
colony, for the purpose, it is said, of making representations to the
government. They answer that in no manner have they been
officially concerned in said convention, and that the colonists of
this jurisdiction have taken officially no part in it. God and
Liberty. EZEKIEL WILLIAMS, Alcalde.4
In 1833 when the second convention was called to meet in San
Felipe, the same delegates that had been sent from Gonzales in
1832 were returned. On April 27, 1833, James B. Patrick ex-
pressed to the political chief his attitude toward this convention in
the following terms:
The Ayuntamiento of Gonzales heartily concurs in the action
of the convention of April 1, at San Felipe on the subject of sep-
arate State organization for Texas, being of the opinion that the
people of Texas are in the legally prescribed condition for such a
step, and they approve of the appointment of Stephen F.
Austin, James B. Miller and Erasmo Seguin, on the part of friends
of that measure, to represent them at the capital.5
'Edward, History of Texas, 191-192.
2 Brown, History of Texas, I 198. James Kerr went as delegate from
the Lavaca district.
8 Bexar Archives.
SBrown, History of Texas, I 216.
e Brown, History of Texas, I 232-233.147
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 8, July 1904 - April, 1905, periodical, 1905; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101033/m1/149/: accessed May 6, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.