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1 In the Winter of 1830, the first year of Jackson rule at Washington, Houston came to that city from the wilds of the far West, in company with a band of Indians, who professed to have business there. He remained some weeks or months, ostensibly attending to this business, and made or renewed the acquaintance of one Dr. Robert Mayo, with whom he became intimate, and to whom he imparted his Texas project; and by him it was betrayed to President Jackson, who, very probably, had already heard it from Houston himself.
“I learned from him,” wrote Mayo, “that he was organizing an expedition against Texas; to afford a cloak to which, he had assumed the Indian costume, habits, and associations, by settling among them in the neighborhood of Texas. That nothing was more easy to accomplish than the conquest and possession of that extensive and fertile country, by the cooperation of the Indians in the Arkansas Territory, and recruits among the citizens of the United States. That, in his view, it would hardly be necessary to strike a blow to wrest Texas from Mexico. That it was ample for the establishment and maintenance of a separate and independent government from the United States. That the expedition would be got ready with all possible dispatch. That the demonstration would and must be made in about twelve months from that time. That tile event of success opened the most unbounded prospects of wealth to those who would embark in it,” etc., etc. Dr. Mayo further learned from one Hunter, a confederate of Houston, that there were then secret agencies in all the principal cities of the Union, enlisting men for the Texas enterprise.
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