Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/652

 than the Executive. It was a measure calculated to sustain the faith and credit of the State, and it has done so to a material extent. The warrants were purchased at from 85 to 95 cents on the dollar, the purchasers relying for payment on the collection of the money due by the Federal Government to Texas for expenses incurred in defending the frontier, and it was not until the prospect of obtaining that money was understood to be uncertain that they depreciated to any great extent. At present there is scarcely any demand for them even at a ruinous discount.

The Legislature will at once see the necessity of providing means for the redemption of the warrants, with the interest.

Not only the holders of those already issued, but a large number of rangers yet to be paid, have a right to expect that the public faith shall be maintained. The Legislature should see to it that the brave men who have, regardless of privation and danger, gone to the defense of the frontier are not deprived of the pay justly due them.

They have already been compelled to yield a considerable portion to obtain money to meet their necessities. Many are yet holding their warrants in the hope that justice will be done them. Those yet to be paid look alike to the Legislature.

Those now in the field will be stimulated to greater efforts in behalf of the frontier if they find that their zeal and courage are appreciated, and provision is made to recompense their toil.

The Executive regrets to be compelled to inform the Legislature that none of the money appropriated by the United States Congress to reimburse the State for expenses incurred in defending the frontier against Indians has yet been obtained. There was appropriated by act of Congress of March 3. 1859, the sum of $53,000, and on the 21st of June, 1860, the sum of $123,444.51 for this purpose. No steps had been taken for the collection of the amount due on the first appropriation when the present Executive came into office. On the 16th of March, 1860, instructions were sent to the Comptroller to forward to the War Department at Washington duplicate copies of the muster rolls, vouchers, etc., necessary to obtain the amount paid by the State for the services of six companies of rangers called into service by Gen. Persifer F. Smith in 1854, provided for by act of Congress of March 3, 1859.

The Comptroller declined to send the vouchers necessary to secure the collection of the amount. It was the intention of the Executive to solicit the services of one or more of our members of Congress then at Washington in the settlement of our business, and when the amount due the State was ascertained, to obtain U. S. Treasury drafts, which could have been cashed here by the Comptroller at par, and thus all the expenses of a special agent would have been avoided. The Executive again on the 9th of October requested that the vouchers for the whole claim be forwarded at as early a day as practicable, the Comptroller having informed him that they were ready for transmission. On the 3d of November, desiring to facilitate and hasten the collection of this amount, the Executive notified the Comptroller of his intention to appoint Geo. J. Durham, Esq., chief clerk of the Comptroller's office, as agent to bear the muster rolls, vouchers, etc., to Washington, and to attend to the collection of the claim. On the 5th of November a communication was received from the Comptroller, declining to place the papers in the hands of Mr. Durham, and on