At Brazoria, on September 8, the people gave a great dinner for him. Over 1000 citizens and settlers gathered there, to welcome him and listen to an address. General Houston came in, and many another notable. It was the first large public banquet in Texas.
Stephen Austin said that he had left for Mexico City with hopes of peace, but that after persecution and imprisonment he had returned to find only unrest and threat of war. Texas was entitled to be separate from Coahuila; of this there was no doubt. The only way by which the Texas farmers could prosper was through getting this matter settled, so that Texas could feel free to go to work. Santa Anna had promised him that the new constitution should consider the special needs of the people of Texas, and had been told that if armed troops were sent into Texas they would be resisted. Now, the thing for Texas to do was to cease these outbreaks and disputes, and to call a general convention, for the purpose of officially drawing up resolutions to Santa Anna, protesting against the armed troops, and saying just what Texas desired, in the new Mexican constitution. This would show that Texas was united.
And he gave as a toast: “The constitutional rights and security and peace of Texas――they ought to be maintained; and jeopardized as they now are, they demand a general consultation of the people.”
But scarcely had the report of the banquet and the speech been spread around, when came the news that General Cos was on his way with troops to land at Matagorda Bay, march inland clear across Texas to Bejar and place the country under military rule! This must not be permitted. Once let the Mexican soldiery establish themselves in Texas, and Texas was lost.
There was no time in which to assemble the consultation advised by Stephen Austin. But at San Felipe immediately met the Central Committee of Safety, of which he was chairman. On September 19, of this 1835, issued a proclamation, signed by him, and printed by the public press at San Felipe――a press that the government hated.
The proclamation, as received at Gonzales, called upon Texans to insist upon their rights under the constitution of 1824; to send delegates for a general consultation and authorized to act as might be necessary; to raise militia and volunteers; not to depend upon the promises of General Cos or other Mexican officers. And it added: