Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/553

 to the organization, the object, and the means of this company, the history becomes more interesting, inasmuch as it directly involves the acts of Judge Watrous, and exposes, over their own signature, in letters, the shameless schemes of the members of the company to corrupt the courts of the United States.

The first movement of the parties in the court seems to have been the institution of a made-up suit, to test the question how far the fraudulent land certificates might be valilated by the action of the courts. The suit was brought in Judge Watrous' court by Phalen, a citizen of New York, against Herman, a citizen of Texas, on a promissory note for three thousand dollars, dated 5th July, 1846, at ninety days.

The inspection of the correspondence of the land company betrays the fact that this man Phalen was the president of that company, and a confederate of Judge Watrous.

The defense was that the note was given for a fraudulent, and therefore worthless land certificate.

The petition in the suit was filed on the 21st of January, 1847.

The answer was filed on the 22d of the same month.

The transfer to New Orleans, on application of the plaintiff, was made on the next day after, the 23d. Thus, in less than seventy-two hours from the institution of the suit, it was transferred to New Orleans, on application of the plaitiff. All this was done out of term time.

The transcript was filed there (New Orleans) on the nth of February. The trial was commenced on the 16th of that month; and the case was finally submitted, for decision, on the 23d of March.

Thus we see, that in sixty odd days from the filing of the petition, the case was put at issue, transferred, tried, and submitted. It appears that in the pleadings at New Orleans, it was admitted by the plaintiff that the certificate which he (Phalen) had sold to Herman for three thousand dollars was a. fraudulent one, issued to a fictitious person.

It appears, moreover, that Judge Watrous had informed one of his confederates in the land association (Reynolds) of the transfer of the suit referred to, actually before it had been commenced in his court! In a letter from Reynolds to Johnson, dated the 10th of February, 1847, he says: "Judge Watrous informs me, by letter of the 19th ultimo, that you were to leave the next day, from Galveston, for New Orleans, in charge of our land case, with the view of bringing it before the circuit court of that district."

This information was given on the 19th of January; the suit was not even instituted until the 21st of that month.

I will now read some of the correspondence in my possession, that passed between members of the land company touching the conduct of this suit: ", February 10, 1847.

":—Judge Watrous informs me, by letter of the 19th ultimo, that you were to leave the next day, from Galveston, for New Orleans, in charge of our land case, with the view of bringing it before the circuit court of that district. And I hear from Major Holman, that you were daily expected in Philadelphia. I write therefore, at present, merely to say, that if you are in New Orleans, that I have caused Mr. Grimes to be written to by one of our associates, and that he will join you in the case. I am very anxious to have your views