April 6th, 1830.

DECREE.

The Vice President of the Mexican United States, to the inhabitants of the Republic:

KNOW YE, that the General Congress has decreed as follows:

ART. 1. The entry of those descriptions of cotion goods, prohibited by the law of 22d May last, shall be permitted in the ports of the republic generally, until the 1st January 1831, and in those ports situated on the south sea, until the last of June, 1831.

ART. 2. The duties arising from the importation of such goods, shall be appropriated to maintaining the indivisibility of the Mexican territory, to the formation of a fund of reserve, to be used in case of a Spanish invasion, and to the encouragement of national industry.

ART. 3. The government shall appoint one or more commissioners, whose duty it shall be, to visit the colonies of the frontier states; to contract with the legislatures of said states, for the purchase by the nation of lands suitable for the establishment of new colonies of Mexicans and foreigners; to enter into such arrangements as they may deem proper, for the security of the republic, with the colonies already established; to watch over the exact compliance of the contracts on the entrance of new colonists; and to investigate how far the contracts already made have been complied with.

ART. 4. The executive is empowered to take possession of such lands as may be suitable for fortifications and arsenals, and for the new colonies, indemnifying the state in which such lands are situated, by a deduction from the debt due by such state to the federation.

ART. 5. The Government may cause such number of the convicts destined for Vera Cruz and other places, as it may deem proper, to be conducted to the colonies it may establish, paying at the same time the expense of removal, of such families as may desire to accompany them.

ART. 6. The said convicts shall be employed in the construction of the fortifications, public buildings, and roads which the respective commissioner may judge necessary; and every convict who, at the expiration of his term of service, shall desire to become a colonist, shall receive a grant of land, and shall be furnished with implements of husbandry and a subsistence dur ing one year.

ART. 7. Mexican families who may voluntarily desire to become colonists, shall be conveyed free of expense, subsisted during the first year, and receive a grant of land and the necessary implements of husbandry.

ART. 8. The individuals spoken of in the anterior articles, shall conform to the laws of colonization of the federation, and the state in which they are settled.

ART. 9. The entrance of foreigners by the frontier of the north, under any pretence whatsoever, is prohibited, unless furnished with a passport,

signed by an agent of the republic in the country from which the individual may come.

ART. 10. No change will be made with respect to the colonies already established, nor with respect to the slaves which they now contain; but the general government, and that of each particular state, shall exact, under the strictest responsibilities, the observance of the colonization laws, and the prevention of the further introduction of slaves.

ART. 11. In exercise of the right reserved to the general congress, by the 7th article of the law of 18th August, 1824, the citizens of foreign countries lying adjacent to the Mexican territory, are prohibited from settling as colonists in the states or territories of the republic adjoining such countries. Those contracts of colonization, the terms of which are opposed to the present article, and which are not yet complied with, shall consequently be suspended.

ART. 12. For and during the term of four years, the coasting trade shall be free to foreign vessels for transportation of produce of the colonies to the ports of Matamoras, Tampico, and Vera Cruz.

ART. 13. For and during the term of two years, the introduction of frame houses, and of every kind of foreign provisions, shall be admitted into the ports of Galveston and Matagorda, free of duty.

ART. 14. The Government is authorized to expend in the construction of fortifications and public buildings on the frontier, in the transportation of convicts and Mexican families to the new colonies, in the subsistence of such during one year, in implements of husbandry, transportation of troops, and premiums to agriculturists who may distinguish themselves amongst the colonists, and for the general purposes contemplated by the foregoing articles, the sum of five hundred thousand dollars.

ART. 15. For the purpose of raising promptly one half of the said sum, the government is authorized to negotiate a loan, payable from the duties received on coarse cotton goods, at the rate of three per cent. per month, to to be paid at the term fixed by the Arancel.

ART. 16. The twentieth part of the above-mentioned duties, shall be employed to encourage cotton manufactories, by purchasing machines and looms, by furnishing small sums to aid in their establishment, and by such other. means as the government may deem most advisable; apportioning the aid among the states where this branch of industry exists. This appropriation shall be placed at the disposition of the Minister of Relations, to be applied to the above stated interesting objects.

ART. 17. Out of the produce of said duties, shall also be reserved three hundred thousand dollars for the formation of a fund, to be deposited in the treasury, under the most strict responsibility of the government, that it shall not be touched except in case of a Spanish invasion.

ART. 18. The Government shall form a system for the regulation of the

1 new colonies, and shall, within one year, lay before congress an account of the colonies established under this law, and a statement of the increase of

I the new settlement on the frontiers.-Jose Dominguez, Pres't of the Ch. of Dep., Miguel Duque de Estrada, Pres't of the Senate, Juan Vicente Campos, dep. sect., Rafael Delgado, sect. of the Senate.

Wherefore, I command the present to be printed, published and circulated and fulfilled.

Palace of the Federal Government, Mexico, April 6th, 1830.

To D. LUCAS ALAMAN.

ANASTACIO BUSTAMENTE.

DECREE.

November 25th, 1833.

ART. 1. The eleventh article of the law of the sixth of April 1830 is repealed, in all its parts.*

ART. 2. The government is authorised to expend the sums necessary in the colonization of the territories of the confederation, and other vacant places which it has the right to colonize.

ART. 3. The Government is also authorised with respect to lands subject to colonization, to adopt such measures as they (may consider conducive to the security, advancement and stability of the colonies which shall be established. ART. 4. The repeal spoken of in the first article of this decree shall not take effect until the expiration of six months after its publication.

ART. 5. In the authority conceded by the second article is comprehended that of raising fortresses at those points on the frontiers where the executive may think them useful and expedient.

CIRCULAR

Of the Secretary of Relations.

February 4th, 1834.

In relation to the Colonization of the the lands of Coahuila and Texas. The Vice President of the Mexican United States, in the exercise of the supreme executive power, availing himself of the authority conferred upon

For the act of 6th April 1830, see page 621. The 11th article above repealed is as follows: "11. In the exercise of the authority reserved to the general congress in the 7th article of the law of the 18th August 1824, the colonization of foreigners of adjacent countries is prohibited in the state and territories which adjoinsuch foreign nations. Consequently, contracts which are opposed to this law shall be suspended.

him by the law of the 6th April 1830, and impressed with the necessity of relieving a multitude of persons whose condition has been and now is most un fortunate by reason of political errors, the paralization of trade, the destruction of fortunes, and all those evils which attend a state in a condition of constant revolution as has been the state of this republic for many years, it has resulted in the opening of the coffers of the public in order to repair as far as possible, a state of things so deplorable. The territories situated adjoining the dividing line of our republic all crossed by navigable rivers, situated immediately on the Atlantic Ocean, open to commerce, unexhausted by culti vation and fruitful in the extreme, and inviting the robust arms of the Mexican to all kinds of employment which can no where else be so well rewarded and the same facilities afforded, as within their limits.

No other measures are necessary to effect the colonization of those beautiful and fruitful territories, but the incipient advances for the enterprise, and the Supreme government have the disposition and power to make them. The public funds should not be wasted but neither should the necessary means be niggardly applied, nor as those affected be withheld, anticipating on proper occasions the means of bringing into action the industry of the nation, until their accumulated means shall place the colonists in a position not only of supplying for themselves the bare necessaries of life, but to form for themselves a capital by which to extend their operations and to reproduce continually the product of agricultural industry, the true source of wealth, and that upon which alone new communities can rely.

The republic finds itself infested by families, which in one mode or another, from this or that cause, have lost their fortune and their peace: all such the Supreme government invites to better their condition in the peaceful pursuits of agriculture this will restore their estates, improve their fortunes, make them to forget their errors and wanderings, and convert into useful citizens a multitude of persons, whom the pressure of circumstances have widely separated from the existing communities and the imperious necessity of living, which could not be satisfied by lawful means, has ranked with the class of criminals.

The vice president is sincerely desirous of attaining this happy result, but he cannot omi adopting the precautions to secure it by avoiding the result that the transport of the colonists shall possess no other character than that of a costly journey. If they are to abandon their land shortly after their arrival, and if they are to do nothing to render it productive by their labor, and confine themselves to consuming the appropriations made for the sacred pur pose of supplying their want of capital, the object is entirely frustrated, and the republic instead of recovering its erring citizens, only lose their funds, and increase their wants by an enterprise, which instead of securing, exposes to greater risks the integrity of its territory. At no period has it been so important to provide for the security of the frontiers, and to give employ

ment to the innumerable hands which by the most sad fatality are found unemployed. To objects so beneficent and salutary has the attention of the goverment been directed, and he believes that the following provisions are not unlikely to secure them.

1. Every person who is free and not under local engagements in other parts of the republic shall be admitted to colonize the lands which are or may be at the disposition of the supreme government in the state of Coahuila and Texas.

2. This invitation is most particularly given to the officers and soldiers who have been thrown out of employment from having taken part in the present revolution, to those who are under obligation for debts due to the government, to those expelled from the States and to those who already remain with arms in their hands.

3. To each family which shall engage to colonize in said State there shall be given a tenth part of a sitio de ganado mayor.

4. To every person more than fifteen years of age the expense of cattle or carts necessary for transportation, shall be borne by the government, and they shall become the property of such persons at the moment of arriving at the sitio where they intend colonizing.

5. Each of the persons aforesaid past the age of fifteen years, shall be assisted from the day of his departure from the place of his residence to the end of a year, by receiving four reals daily, and to those less than fifteen years of age, two reals.

6. No person shall separate from the colony before the expiration of two years without the permission of the government, and those who do so shall lose the land which had been given to them, and continue bound to pay whatever may have been received from the government.

7. To each of the families comprising the colonies shall be given a yoke of cattle and a cow, or their value, two ploughs and such carpentering and farming tools as the government shall consider necessary.

8. From the land which is appropriated for a village there shall be given to each family a building lot on which to erect a house as his own dwelling. 9. The transportation shall be conducted under the direction of the person or persons which the government shall select.

10. The colonies shall be subject to such political regulations as the government shall direct and when they shall have distributed their house lots, they shall establish a municipal government.

[Published by decree, on the 6th. instant.] In the declaration circulated by the Secretary of the Treasury of the 11th of April, of this year, and published by decree of the 13th, the 10th article is published in the following terms :

"The Colonies shall be subject to such political ruler or rulers as the government shall designate and when they shall have distributed their house lots