independent Republic. The new state needed protection, and Long went to Galveston to endeavor to obtain Lafitte's assistance. Having failed in this he returned to Nacogdoches, which he found abandoned by his men. The different posts which he had established in Texas were all captured by the royalists, and Long retired to New Orleans. There he met the Mexicans, Milam and Trespalacios, and was provided with a commission by the latter, who claimed to be a lieutenant-general of the Mexican army. Long invaded Texas again with a small force of fifty-one men and took possession of La Bahía in October, 1821. He was soon forced to surrender to Mexican troops, and was taken to San Antonio and to the city of Mexico, where he was set free, as he pretended he had fought for Mexican independence. In 1822 he was killed by a sentinel at the barracks of Los Gallos. His expedition is as interesting an incident in the history of Texas as that of Philip Nolan.

CHAPTER XIX

THE AMERICAN EMPRESARIOS

AFTER the treaty of 1819 with the United States, Spain was no longer averse to permitting colonists from that country to settle in Texas, and Moses Austin took advantage of the new policy to endeavor to establish a colony in the province from which the American had thus far been excluded. Austin was born at Durham, Connecticut. He engaged in mercantile business in Philadelphia, where he was married, removed afterward to Richmond, Virginia, then to Wythe County, in the same state, where in partnership with his brother Stephen, he established smelting works for the manufacture of shot and sheet lead. The mine purchased by the brothers not proving sufficiently productive, Moses Austin thought of settling in Upper Louisiana in 1796. The next year he obtained from Governor Carondelet a grant of one league of land with lead mines in what is now Washington County in Missouri. He established a settlement there in 1799 and was prosperous for many years. He was ruined, however, in 1818, by the failure of the bank of St. Louis, and thought of trying his fortune once more as a settler in Texas. He interested his son Stephen in the venture, and in the fall of 1820 he started on horseback for San Antonio.

Austin reached his destination in December, 1820, after a painful journey, only to be ordered out of the province by Governor Martinez of Texas, who would not listen to his plea that he had been a Spanish citizen in Upper Louisiana.

Austin left the governor's house to return to Missouri, but met on the plaza of San Antonio the Baron de Bastrop, then in the service of Spain, who interested himself in his behalf, and obtained from Martinez a favorable consideration of the plan to bring three hundred families into Texas. Bastrop was a former Prussian officer who had obtained a large tract of land in Lower Louisiana, of which he had ceded part to Aaron Burr when the latter was preparing his wild scheme in 1806 against Mexico.

Austin's petition was forwarded to Arredondo, commandant of the Eastern Internal Provinces, and the courageous adventurer started on his return journey. He suffered such hardships on the way that when he reached Natchitoches he was exhausted. After a short rest he resumed his journey and reached Missouri, where he died on June 10, 1821, aged fifty-seven. He lived long enough to hear that his petition to the Spanish authorities had been granted, and he confided the prosecution of his enterprise to his son.

Stephen Fuller Austin was born in Virginia, November 31, 1793. He was a member of the Territorial legislature of Missouri from 1813 to 1819, and then for nearly two years a circuit judge in the Arkansas Territory, whither he had gone to make arrangements in furtherance of his father's plan. When the latter died Stephen Austin was in New Orleans endeavoring to get immigrants for the proposed colony. He heard that Moses Austin's petition had been granted, and that Spanish commissioners had arrived at Natchitoches, and from there set out for Texas. On the way he heard of his father's death, and he resolved to continue the enterprise begun by Moses Austin. Accompanied by seventeen companions he went to Nacogdoches and then to San Antonio and was recognized by Governor Martinez as empresario or contractor. He was allowed to explore the country along the Colorado river and to choose a location for his settlement, and he furnished a plan for the distribution of land, which was approved by the governor. Each head of a family was to receive six hundred and forty acres,