Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/515

 has, time after time, in the most public manner, without any concealment, and without giving any confidential character to his communications, condemned in the most unequivocal and decided terms the action of the naval board. That Commodore Perry has never denied, and no one, I presume, will ever deny it for him.

Mr. . I wish to say but one word more, if the Senator from Texas will pardon me. I do not pretend to know what Commodore Perry has said on the subject. The Senator from Georgia says that it will not be denied that—as was asserted yesterday—Commodore Perry made use of expressions condemnatory of the course of the naval board. I know nothing whatever on that matter; but I do protest against any inference being drawn as to Commodore Perry's concession in regard to the truth or accuracy of these representations of his conversations, until my colleague, who is closely related to him, and vv^ho is in possession of his confidence on the subject, shall be in his seat, and shall have heard a statement of the conversations that are imputed to him. For myself, I do not pretend to deny—as the Senator from Georgia says that he presumes no one will deny—these imputed conversations; but I will say that until they come from some other source than Lieutenant Bartlett I refuse my credence to them.

Mr. . If my friend from Texas will allow me, I wish to put him right as to one question. All this controversy in relation to personal matters I can not enter into, because this great naval reform does not depend on any such questions which may be put in issue here. Therefore I have not responded to the remarks which the honorable Senator from Tennessee made yesterday in referring to Mr. Bartlett; I have not responded to anything which fell from the honorable Senator from Texas in relation to Mr. Bartlett, because the case was committed to the honorable member from Louisiana [Mr. Slidell], who will give proper responses to the ideas thrown out here in regard to Mr. Bartlett, which I have no doubt will be satisfactory to the Senate.

But the Senator from Texas undertakes to comment on a matter which this body has committed to one of its standing committees—a memorial on which there is to be a report. That matter is before the committee, and is undergoing its investigation at this moment. What report the committee may make upon that subject is yet entirely uncertain. The Senator from Texas, however, undertakes to comment upon the conduct of the committee in that case. If he chooses to do that, I submit it as a matter of taste and propriety; but I wish to correct him as to a point of fact in which he is mistaken. I presume that he has been misinformed upon the subject, because I am confident that he could not have derived his information from any member of the committee. The statement to which I allude is as to the investigation which is going on as to the veracity of Mr. Bartlett.

The Senator said that the investigation pointed to the letter in the Herald, as if the veracity of Mr. Bartlett was to be dependent entirely on the issue of the controversy between Commodore Perry and himself. Now, I beg to inform my friend from Texas that such is not the fact. I have never asked a question, to my knowledge, in relation to that letter, the answer to which would affect the veracity of Mr. Bartlett in any degree whatever. The examination before the committee is entirely outside of that. It may come in, as a matter of course, though I should never ask a question about it. I merely wish to put my friend