Free Lone Star Nation by H.W. Brands

back, how volunteers can be cajoled but less effectively ordered, how horses are faster than mules but mules more reliable. He also learned about the evanescent nature of militia service. When his regiment encountered insufficient fighting to keep the men interested, it melted away as they returned to their civilian occupations. Stephen Austin soon followed their example.
    The end of the war raised lead prices but not enough to rescue the Austin business. Moses, discouraged and distracted, leased the operation to Stephen, who accepted the transfer with ambivalence. “I have taken possession of the mines and the whole establishment here,” he wrote his brother-in-law, James Bryan, “and commenced business under the style of S. F. Austin & Co., and am flattering myself with the pleasing hope of being able by the end of this year to free the family from every embarrassment.” Yet the task would require all his energy and wit. “I shall literally bury myself this spring and summer in the mines.”
    He nonetheless found time to enter public service, gaining election to the territorial legislature. With many—perhaps most—of the members, he saw public service as a complement to his private enterprises. He drafted a petition to Congress to raise the duty on imported lead, arguing that encouragement of the lead industry would “add another most important item to the prosperity and independence of the Nation.” It went without his saying that a higher tariff would also contribute to the prosperity and independence of the Austin family.
    But neither Stephen’s work in the mines nor his appeal to Congress brought relief to the business. The gloom that already afflicted Moses descended on Stephen. “My opinion of mankind has, unfortunately perhaps, been as bad as it could be for some years,” he told James Bryan, “but the longer I live the worse it grows.” His father’s debts, which had become his own, weighed upon him—yet, paradoxically, gave him a reason to carry on. “As for myself, I believe I am nearly indifferent what becomes of me, or whether I live or die, unless I am to be of use to my family by living.” Usefulness took one form above all: paying off the family debt. “When the day arrives that the whole family are out of debt I mean to
celebrate it
as my
wedding
day—which never will come until then.”

    In marrying Moses’ debt, Stephen bound himself—without realizing it—to Moses’ Texas venture. While Moses was dreaming of Texas and what a man might accomplish there, Stephen attempted a fresh start in Arkansas. He acquired an interest in properties that showed promise as town sites, including one on the Arkansas River at Little Rock. But though the town flourished, other men were quicker and shrewder than he at extracting the profits. He won appointment to be circuit court judge, only to have his court closed by the territorial legislature almost before he robed up.
    He moved farther south, to New Orleans, where the elder brother of a college classmate took him in as an apprentice lawyer. Austin’s sponsor, Joseph Hawkins, was an attorney with standing in the community. “He is not rich,” Stephen explained to his mother, “but he has a most generous heart. He has made me this offer: if I will remain with him, he will board me, permit me the use of his books, and money for clothes, give me all the instruction in his power until I am well fitted to commence the practice of law in this country; for my board and the use of his books he will charge nothing, and for the money he advances he will wait until I make enough by my profession to repay him.” Having failed at business, Stephen saw the law as a means to make good what Moses had lost. “If I am left alone a few years I may get up and pay all off.”
    Yet he was not left alone. At the very moment that Stephen was launching his career as a