Lexinton October 9 1824

Dear Friend,

I have long wished to answer your kind and welcome letter but this is the first opportunity I have had—

In knowing as I feel you do my Dear Lost One you can feel with and for me Oh Austion! how severely has God afflicted me—I know not how I should have seppoarted it if I had not been with him and been taught to anticipate that, or wors—for two years he was changed Oh! how much changed both in health and spirits, how oft has my heart bleed in beholding the harassed and agonized expression of that dear countenance—I saw to planly saw his manly heart would brake under the acumulated strooks of misfortune and the prospect of black poverty—

You wish me to send out an agen, I do not think it would be advisable in the present state of things to do so, every thin[g] else is lost to me and my poor Children and though I have All ways viewed that as a very distant prospect, still it is sum thin to cling to. Having every reliance on the goodness of your heart I am perfectly willing to resian the welfare of my Fatherless Children to you, but for fear of accidents to your self, I think you ought at once to secure to my children by will or in sum other way their share or portion of the greant.

I hav returned to Kentucky but Alas! with what dreary prospects no one to look upto for support or comfort, my friends are nearly all as destitute as myself if I could procure the means of commenceing house keeping I could make myself independent by taking boarders. Never on earth shall I be reconciled to my lot if I can not make my children independent I have five of them to struggle for, and willingly would I toil night and day for them—On his account who never sufferd me to know what it was to want—write often—

May God in his infinite mercy protect you and yours from the hevy misfortune of your afflicted friend—

G. A. Hawkins

[Addressed:] Stephen F Austin Esq Brassos Province of Texas J. E. B. Austin