Correspondence of the Richmond Dispatch.
letter from Texas.
We met at an early hour last Saturday morning, and marched in double file to Brenham, our county seat, to attend a mass meeting for the purpose of nominating candidates for the State Convention, which meets in Austin on the 28th day of January next. The election of delegates is to be held on the 8th of January.
The meeting, which was a very large one, was soon organized, and was, by unanimous request, addressed in a lengthy and soul-stirring speech by the Rev. Geo. W. Carter, late of the Virginia Methodist Conference, now President of Soule University, in this county. During the speech many old Texans were seen hastily to brush a tear from their sunburnt cheeks. There were but few Union men present before the speech, after which, I think there were none.
Gov. Houston is inclined to submit, and has, after having been solicited by more than half the counties in the State, positively refused to convene the Legislature; but the people of Texas have a constitutional right to meet in Convention and sever our connection with the General Government, and again hoist the Lone Star flag, which they will surely do, in spite of Gov. Houston or anybody else. Almost every county in the State has organized from two to six companies of Minute Men.
Our frontier people are again in great distress. The Indians were down two weeks ago, and murdered thirty-six persons — men, women and children — and stole nearly all the horses in the settlement. While the Indians are butchering the inhabitants and burning their dwellings, the malignant scarlet fever is raging among the children; and, added to that, they are out of bread, sugar and coffee — they have had none lately. Their horses are all stolen, and their cattle driven off, and they are afraid to go to look for them for fear of being scalped. Truly, they are to be pitied. And this is all done by those Government pets, the reserve Indians. They are fed, clothed and guarded by United States troops, but their days are numbered. Texas will soon manage her own affairs. The old Texas tricolored Lone Star flag now floats over every town and village in the State. Long may it wave. S. W.
