MOVERS TO TEXAS. [CHAP. XXIV. 



others of their kindred who were to follow with their heavy wagons. 

 One of these families is carrying away no less than forty negroes, 

 and the cheerfulness with which these slaves are going, they 

 know not where, with their owners, notwithstanding their usual 

 dislike to quit the place they have been brought up in, shows a 

 strong bond of union between the master and &quot; his people.&quot; In 

 the last fifteen months 1300 whites, and twice that number of 

 slaves, have quitted Alabama for Texas and Arkansas, and they 

 tell me that Monroe County has lost 1500 inhabitants. &quot;Much 

 capital,&quot; said one of my informants, &quot; is leaving this state, and 

 no wonder ; for if we remain here, we are reduced to the alter 

 native of high taxes to pay the interest of money so improvidently 

 borrowed from England, or to suffer the disgrace of repudiation, 

 which would be doubly shameful, because the money was received 

 in hard cash, and lent out, often rashly, by the state, to farmers 

 for agricultural improvements. Besides,&quot; he added, &quot; all the 

 expenses of Government were in reality defrayed during several 

 years by borrowed money, and the burthen of the debt thrown 

 on posterity. The facility with which your English capitalists, 

 in 1821, lent their cash to a state from which the Indians were 

 not yet expelled, without reflecting on the migratory nature of 

 the white population, is astonishing ! The planters who got 

 grants of your money, and spent it, have nearly all of them 

 moved off and settled beyond the Mississippi. 



&quot; First, our Legislature negotiates a loan; then borrows to pay 

 the interest of it ; then discovers, after some years, that five out 

 of the sixteen millions lent to us have evaporated. Our demo 

 crats then stigmatize those who vote for direct taxes to redeem 

 their pledges as * the high taxation men. Possibly the capital 

 and interest may eventually be made good, but there is some 

 risk at least of a suspension of payment. At this moment the 

 state is selling land forfeited by those to whom portions of the 

 borrowed money were lent on mortgage, but the value of prop 

 erty thus forced into the market, is greatly depreciated.&quot; 



Although, since my departure in 1846, Alabama has not re 

 pudiated, I was struck with the warning here conveyed against 

 lending money to a new and half-formed community, where every- 



