Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/365




 * — Your communications to Mr. Bee and General Hamilton, dated at the Palace of the Government of Mexico, have been recently presented to my notice. At the first convenient leisure, I have not failed to appropriate my attention to the subjects embraced within the scope of your remarks.

They would have met a more ready attention had it not been for a marauding incursion made by a Mexican force on the defenseless town of San Antonio, on the inhabited frontier of Texas. Apprehending that the force had some other character more important than that of bandits and plunderers, commanded as it was by regular officers, it produced a momentary excitement, and claimed the attention of the Executive. But, as the bandits have withdrawn, characterizing their retreat by pillage and plunder, as has been usual with Mexicans, I am left at leisure to resume in tranquillity the duties of my station.

In reference to your correspondence with Mr. Bee and General Hamilton, I have no remark to offer in relation to the communications which those gentlemen assumed the individual responsibility of making to you. The very nature of the correspondence manifests the fact that it was not done under the sanction of this Government, but rests solely upon their action as individuals. Had your response regarded them in the light in which they were presented to you, it would have superseded the necessity of any notice from me. But as you have thought proper to laud my conduct as an individual, and refer to transactions connected with this country, with which I had official identity, and which I also at this time possess, and as you have taken the liberty, to an unwarrantable extent, to animadvert upon circumstances connected with Texas as a nation, I feel myself compelled by a sense of duty to refute a portion of the calumnies which you have presented to the world under the sanction of your official averment.

You appear to have seized upon the flimsy pretext; of confidential communications unknown to the officers of this Governm.ent, and unknown to the world until divulged by you, for the purpose of manufacturing a capital (349)