in fear of each
other.

From a late letter of a friend in America, I make the following extract
relative to the present condition of Texas.

"To give thee some adequate idea of the importance of that
beautiful republic of Texas, which Lord Palmerston and the late
Whig government of England took under their especial protection,
I will just refer to the statistics of the late election of its
President. The successful candidate, General Houston, a man
notorious for his open contempt for all the decencies of
civilized society,--brutal, brawling, profane, and
licentious,--received somewhat rising five thousand votes: his
competitor, Judge Burnet, between two and three thousand,--a
vote smaller by thousands than that of our little county of
Essex, in Massachusetts. Late accounts from Texas inform us that
gangs of organized desperadoes, under the names of moderators
and regulators, are traversing its territory, perpetrating the
most brutal outrages. In one instance they seized a respectable
citizen who dared to express his dissatisfaction with their
proceedings, hurried him into the forest, and deliberately dug
his grave before his eyes, _intending to bury him alive_! The
miserable victim, horrified by the prospect of such a fate,
broke away from his tormentors, and attempted to escape, but was
shot down and instantly killed! Such a congregation as Texas
presents was never, I suspect, known, save in that city into
which the Macedonian monarch gathered and garnered, in one
scoundrel community, the vagabond rascality of his kingdom.

"Thou would'st be amused to read an article, which has made its
appearance in the _Houston Telegraph_--a Texian paper--in which
the editor says, 'that while we deeply commiserate the situation
of our sister republic, in regard to the political scourge of
abolitionism, it is pleasing to reflect that our country enjoys
a _complete immunity from its effects_. Indeed we may with
safety declare, that throughout the whole extent of our country,
not a single abolitionist can be found.' He goes on to say that
this induces many of the southern planters to emigrate to Texas,
who, he remarks, '_will necessarily look to Texas, as the
Hebrews did to the promised land, for a refuge and home_.' It
will thus be seen that Texas is the promised land of the
patriarchal