Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/569

Rh the property claimed was owned in the State of Alabama; and in both cases, the claims of the parties had slumbered for nearly twenty years — until the first term of the court of Judge Watrous, after he (Judge Watrous) had obtained an interest.

With respect to the Ufford and Dykes suit, an attempt was made in the course of the investigation by the committee of the House to discover who were the parties in interest in Alabama. But the inquiry was baffled. The witness who was examined as to the matter, plead his privilege as an attorney, and declined to answer. What important disclosures might have been made, had the question been freely answered, and the truth relieved from suppression, is left to conjecture. It was esteemed important to know the connections which existed in the inception of these suits. The committee sought the information; but they were stopped at the very threshold by concealment, leaving the whole matter in suspicious darkness.

It is also found in the Ufford and Dykes case, that William G. Hale, the agent of the fraudulent land company, as shown by the correspondence, and holding the most intimate relations with the court, is counsel for the plaintiff, and that on the other side of the case, the counsel is Robert Hughes, the confidential friend and witness of the court.

The same question of title existed as in the Lapsley cases, in which Judge Watrous was interested by partnership in speculation with the plaintiff to the amount of one-fourth of the property, which one-fourth is valued at $75,000, and for which he (Judge Watrous) has never laid, and never was required to pay, a cent of pier chase money up to the present time. The grants in both cases had a common title; and in one of them Judge Watrous had obtained an interest.

It may be observed, too, that the judge professes to have purchased an interest in one of these grants, without ever seeing the title papers, on the simple opinion of Hughes, "the best land lawyer in the Union," as he enthusiastically describes him, that they were good. He was willing, as he signifies, to accept this opinion absolutely as true. Now this UfTord and Dykes grant had a title identical with that in which Judge Watrous had obtained an interest. This title he had declared to be good, on the bare assertion of Hughes. He thus went on the bench in the Ufford and Dykes case, fully committed to an opinion on the title, and with nothing whatever for him on that point to adjudicate.

I now request honorable Senators to accompany me to a scene in the United States district court in Texas, and to bestow upon it but a moment's criticism, in order to perceive its significance.

On the bench is his honor. Judge Watrous, surrounded by all the imposing circumstances of the dispensation of justice. The case of Ufford vs. Dykes is called. A jury is impaneled. Before the judge, as foreman of that jury, stands Edwin Shearer, a deputy clerk in his own court, who is the agent of the judge, who was consulted on the subject, at the inception of the very scheme of fraud at Galveston; was present at Selma, Alabama, when the contract was made between Judge Watrous and others, and who is a brother-in-law of Price, a partner of the judge in that transaction; and besides, was not qualified under the law to be a juror. It appears that a verdict was rendered thus: