Meanwhile, again, Stephen Austin was due in the City of Mexico, bearing the petition from Texas for the national congress to act upon; but with so much confusion and plotting, it would appear that he would arrive at not a very favorable time.
In Gonzales, even, not all the people were agreed. Dick Carroll and some others were strong for securing Texas rights at no matter what cost; but the majority seemed to be in favor of keeping things as they were, if they could not be bettered peaceably. Gonzales was so cut off from the rest of the American settlements, and was so exposed to attack by Indians as well as the Mexican soldiery at Bejar, and so much depended upon raising crops and other supplies, that the town dreaded a general up-setting until it was more firmly established. Indeed, a letter had been dispatched from the town to the Mexican “political chief,” as he was entitled, of the district, at San Antonio, explaining that Gonzales did not wish to take any part in the differences between Bustamante and Santa Anna, and preferred to remain neutral and attend to its own business. It also had declined to take sides in the dispute with the Mexican officials in East Texas.
But when the convention was held at San Felipe, to prepare a constitution and to ask for statehood, then Gonzales sent delegates. On the question of statehood it stood up for Texas. Dick Carroll had plenty of company.
As the weeks sped, Ernest met a number of Texans who were as prominent as Colonel James Bowie. There was Colonel Ben Milam, a Kentuckian who had fought in the War of 1812; had been an Indian trader in Texas before the American settlements; and a leader in Mexico when the people first tried to obtain a republican form of government; and a prisoner there, and afterwards had been rewarded by a large tract of land, and now had another tract, for a colony, but was unable to settle it because of the Indians. A dark, handsome man was Colonel Benjamin R. Milam, who spent much of his time over in Coahuila province.
There was Captain William Barret Travis, from North Carolina, who last summer, at Anahuac on the Gulf coast of East Texas, had been thrown into a dungeon by a tyrannical Mexican official, for resisting some brutal soldiery. Only twenty-two was William Travis. His home was down on Galveston Bay, near Anahuac, but Ernest once saw him while on a trip to San Felipe――a lithe, boyish six-footer, with round freckled face, reddish hair, and steel blue eyes. People said that he was all nerve; nothing could daunt him.