Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/370

 advised of this fact I ordered them to my presence, and instructed them that such conduct would not be tolerated, and caused them to be placed under vigilance. This reason I deemed sufficient to detain General Woll as a prisoner of war. His subsequent conduct to Captain Dimitt was such as to justify any unfavorable opinion which I had formed of his character. He had rendered himself so obnoxious to the army, that, from a desire for his personal security, I did not permit his release until he could go in perfect safety. In no respect had the prisoners taken on that occasion reason of complaint. Their lives were all forfeited by the laws of war, conformably to the precedent which you had exhibited.

General Cos, who had surrendered in 1835, a prisoner of war, at San Antonio, where one hundred and ninety-five Texans stormed and took the Alamo, with the town, when it was defended by seventeen hundred regular troops of Mexico, was again taken prisoner at San Jacinto, after he had violated his parole of honor, by which he had forfeited his life to the law of arms. Yet such was the lenity of Texans that even he was spared, thereby interposing mercy to prevent reclamation being made for the brave Texans perfidiously massacred.

From the 5th of May I had no connection with the encampment, nor the treatment which the prisoners received, until the month of October, when I was inducted into the office of chief magistrate of the nation. It is true that you were chained to an iron bar, but not until an attempt had been made to release you, with your knowledge and assent. A vessel had arrived at Orizimbo, on the Brazos, where you were confined. In possession of its captain were found wines and other liquors mixed with poison, for the purpose of poisoning the officers and guard in whose charge you were, and thereby insuring your escape. In consequence of the sensation produced by this circumstance, you were confined and treated in the manner you have so pathetically portrayed.

Whilst confined by my wounds in San Augustine, I learned that it was the intention of the army to take you to the theater of Fannin's massacre, and there to have had you executed. Upon the advertisement of this fact, I immediately sent an express to the army solemnly protesting against any such act, and interposing every obstacle possible against your further molestation, or any action which might not recognize you as a prisoner of war.

Your recent communications have necessarily awakened attention to these facts, otherwise they would have remained unrecited by me. Any part which I bore in the transaction is not related in imitation of the egotistical style of your communication. It is done alone for the purpose of presenting the lights of history. You have sought to darken its shades, and appeal to the sympathies and command the admiration of mankind, and have even invoked "the prismatic tints of romance."

Now, the tribunal to which you have appealed will have an opportunity of contrasting the treatment which you and the prisoners taken at San Jacinto received, with that of those who have fallen within your power, and particularly those perfidiously betrayed on a recent trading excursion to Santa Fe. You have endeavored to give that expedition the complexion of an invading movement upon the rights of Mexico. To believe you serious