[Letter regarding personal debt due to lack of payment from stockholders with regard to his colony] /
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Manuscript |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
[Place of publication not identified] :
[publisher not identified] ;
[1850?]
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| Subjects: |
| Item Description: | The Cushing Library/Chapman Texas Collection copy is part of the Floyd & Louise Chapman Texas & Borderlands Collection. Title devised by cataloger. Ink handwritten letter to an unknown recipient regarding personal debt due to lack of payment from stockholders with regard to his colony. The letter is missing the first part, but picks up with Mercer explaining he has brought a suit "... against the Texian officer ...Thos. I. Smith ..." for "... the most improper conduct of this officer ..." before getting down to the business at hand. He continues, in part: "I cannot think that, on reflecting, your two associates who declined paying their 3d instalment [sic], and now owe their 4th, on two shares of stock, can refuse to comply with the requisition ... for a faithful compliance with the terms of their printed contract, not only with me, but with our associates, for our interests are common. An examination of their contract, will show that I have had at all times, full power to borrow money, on the credit of the Association, and to pledge the subscribed stock, and all property acquired, by the association, [illegible] repayment. The fact is ... that from the commencement of its existence, the Association formed several months and which paid nothing to me for nine months, after the date of my contract and my first two journeys to Texas; the engagement of Majr. Pillans, Doctor Rowlett and Albert G. Kemball [?] to survey and ... after ... marking the outlines of our grant, was, in October 1844, largely in my debt, a debt recognized in the...contract and never fully discharged. It is, also, unfortunately for me, equally true, that I am now in debt, not only as Chief Agent of the Ass.n but in my private capacity (tho for their benefit) ... Am I to pay ... out of my private fortune or is the Texas Association to pay them out of the instalments [sic] ... upon the forty shares of stock...as capital for conducting the common enterprise? It is true, that I have reserved for my protection ... a right to declare that stock forfeited, on which, the instalment [sic], due, remain, at any time, unpaid. But this cannot release the stockholders from the payment of ... debts already contracted ..." He then urges the recipient, upon finding his finances more secure to "... invest it, with your 4th instalment [sic], in funds suited to the New Orleans market and to forward the proceeds, in a draft, in favor of Peter Comrey [to whom Mercer owes money in excess of $1540] ..." |
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| Physical Description: | 1 folded sheet (4 pages) ; 25 cm. |