text:  Ten thousand acres of the finest land in the world and under a heaven compared to which our Maryland sky bright as it is appears dull and foggy! It was a tempting bait; too good a one not to be caught at by many in those times of speculation; and accordingly our free and enlightened citizens bought and sold their millions of Texian acres just as readily as they did their thousands of towns and villages in Ohio Indiana Illinois and Michigan and their tens of thousands of shares in banks and railways