The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 10, July 1906 - April, 1907 Page: 153

                                
The Seat of Government of Texas.                   153
days longer, occupied in such matters as required immediate atten-
tion, when they also, in the afternoon, repaired calmly to the resi-
dence of the late Col. Groce, on the route to Harrisburg.'
3. HARRISBURG.
The considerations that led to the selection of Harrisburg as the
seat of government are stated by President Burnet, in his first mes-
sage to congress, in these terms:
The administration which had been organized at the town of
Washington deemed it expedient to change its location to Harris-
burg, from which point it could possess an easier access to foreign
countries, from whence our supplies of munitions were to be ob-
tained, and a more direct supervision of its naval and other mari-
time concerns. Such removal was accordingly effected within a
few days after the government was created.2
In an address to the people of Texas, published a few months
after these events occurred, President Burnet says:
Soon after the retreat of the Army from the Colorado, and its
encampment in      the dense forests of the Brazos,        .  .  . the
Government, then located at Harrisburg, directed the Secretary of
War,    .  .  .  Thomas J. Rusk, to repair to the Army, for the
purpose of conferring with the Commander-in-Chief               .  .
That officer remained with the army until after the battle of 21st
April.4
4.    GALVESTON ISLAND.
The narrative of President Burnet continues thus:
The rapid approaches of the enemy had compelled the govern-
ment to abandon Harrisburg, but after a transient dispersion
'Texas Almanac for 1860, p. 51.
2House Jourant, 1 Tex. Gong., 1 Sess., 13.
'Rusk joined the army April 6.-Brown, History of Texas, II 8.
'Telegraph, September 6, 1836.
'April 14 or 15. See: Delgado, Battle of San Jacinto, 32.
6"Sometimes, when Texas was a moving mass of fugitives, they [the gov-
ernment] have been without a "local habitation" and scattered to the cardi-
nal points: again they have been on Galveston Island, without shelter,
and almost without subsistence,"  .    . (Burnet's first message to con-
gress, House Journal, 1 Tex. Cong., 1 Sess., 18.)
It was, perhaps, about this time that President Burnet received the let-
ter from the Nacogdoches Committee -of Vigilance, dated April 6, 1836,
stating "that under the present exigencies of the Country the most eligi-