The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 16, July 1912 - April, 1913 Page: 203
464 p. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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British. Correspondence Concerning Texas
surprize me to find the subject thrown upon favorable public at-
tention by the very event of M. Andrew's forced departure.1
First comes violence, and then come reflection and sympathy,
and indeed it is manifest that the advantages of abolition would
be so immediate and so momentous, that they only need to be
calmly thought of to. make their way in the public mind. I am
waiting in much anxiety for the next arrivals from New Orleans
with the hope that it will bring me some acknowledgment of my
despatches and letters as far down as the 27th Decr.
The "Great Western" I observe she was to sail from England
on the 10th February. As soon as the Boat arrives I am going
up to pay a short visit to the President at Washington [on the
Brazos] which I have been prevented from doing for some weeks,
by the extraordinary floods of the Rivers. The Mischief of ex-
tensive inundation has added itself to all the other troubles that
have plagued this poor Country for the last 12 Months.
The people are rough and wild, but their constancy and cour-
age are admirable. I hardly know any more painful and indeed
humiliatory subject of reflection than the comparative helpless-
ness of our own poor English people, when one finds them thrown
amongst these scheming, enterprising, and it is most distressing
to add, almost invariably much better informed persons than
themselves. The truth is that the poorer Classes of English peo-
ple are broken in, or I should say broken down to do but one
thing in this world, and then accustomed to all the conveniences
and facilities of locomotion etc. etc. in our Country, they make
but sorry work of it in taming the wilds, compared with the
American races.
The training of our social and political mechanism (and my
experience has taught me, military too) unfits men for rough
uses and reverses. It must all work together perfectly smoothly
and successfully, or it will scarcely work at all. These strange
people jolt and jar terrifically in their progress but on they do
get, and prosper too under circumstances where our people would
'Stephen Pearl Andrews, a lawyer of New Orleans; later of Galveston.
After urging a plan of abolition in Texas, he went to England in 1843
seeking the aid of British Anti-Slavery Societies. His later life was
spent in Boston and in New York, where he gained reputation as a
scholar and writer. (Appleton, Cyclopedia of Amer. Biog., I, 76.)203
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 16, July 1912 - April, 1913, periodical, 1913; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101058/m1/211/: accessed May 7, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.