Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/589

 Thus is falsehood added to falsehood; thus is the truth of the record prostituted to collusive designs; and at last, by its falsification, is Mussina left without anything on which to hang even a hope for the recovery of his rights.

Indeed, every circumstance about the record was calculated to inspire suspicion of its integrity. The translations of some of the most important documents in the case had been made by Hale; and although he was not sworn, he was allowed to withdraw the original documents from the file; the translations which he substituted were admitted by the court; and thus again was the record of the case governed by this colluding and unscrupulous attorney, who holds an absolute conveyance for the larger portion of the property.

No wonder that Mussina was unwilling to trust to the integrity of the record thus made up under the eye and direction of his adversary. Nor does he appear to have been timorous without reason. Sir, it appears by the testimony before the late investigating committee, that, in a suit which he instituted in New Orleans, against the parties who had colluded in Judge Watrous' court, to despoil him of his rights, a false record was sent up from Judge Watrous' court; false, too, in the most important and vital particular. In the examination of the record, it was found that an affidavit had been falsified by striking from the very middle of it an important portion of the evidence. Against men who dared thus to do an open act of infamous crime, Mussina had to contend from first to last. Other and glaring evidences of collusion are to be seen in this "statement of proceedings," and, indeed, throughout the record as sent up to the Supreme Court.

It appears that the judge's partnership speculations were of the most various kinds. He not only was interested in the fraudulent certificate business; he not only engaged in speculations with a company of professional dealers in real estate; but he had other partnerships by which to sustain his fortunes. He taxed his ingenuity in contracting partnerships of every description.

The testimony shows that he even obtained partners in the ownership he claimed of a patent for curing beef, and of an extensive beef-curing establishment.

But it is found that he went into another partnership of much more questionable honesty than the beef-curing speculation. He became connected with Dr. Cameron in a silver mine of Mexico. This partner was a principal litigant in his court, and had heavy suits pending therein to large tracts of land under Mexican grants; of course it became the judge's interest that his partner should harvest his means; and to the extent of this interest, he necessarily vacated his office.

I must here advert briefly to another gigantic speculation with which Judge Watrous is shown to have been connected. I refer to what is known as Peters colony; which was a contract of colonization of more than ten thousand square miles of land in Texas. William G. Hale, in his correspondence with Judge Watrous, from which I have already read, makes allusions to the progress of negotiations on the subject. In his letter, dated March 14, 1847, to Judge Watrous, he remarks, "'We have had a long"