teen years of age within the next three years. They were given two tracts of land, one of which was "situated upon the Río Grande, commencing at a point nearly opposite Camargo and running to El Sal del Rey, thence in a parallel line to a point opposite Dolores, below Laredo."[4]  This tract, however, was never settled by the contractors as it was too near areas occupied by Mexican troops and subject to Mexican marauding parties. The other grant was located west of San Antonio and included that section "now comprising parts of Medina, Uvalde, Frio, Atascosa, Béxar, McMullen, LaSalle and Zavalla counties."[5]  At the same time Houston appointed Castro, a trustworthy and educated Frenchman, to be consul general for the Republic in France.

Without visiting the land which had been granted to him, Castro returned to France in the spring of 1842 and began recruiting colonists to settle a colony in southwest Texas on the Medina River. In the meantime, those French immigrants who had arrived at Galveston and other points on the Texas coast[6]  were authorized to proceed at once at their own expense to San Antonio and select and occupy the vacant houses in that place, and to cultivate such farms as might be unoccupied, taking due care, however, not to interfere with the rights of any citizen who might wish to do the same.[7]  These immigrants were assured that at San Antonio they would find a French consul who