Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/659

 render it imperative that money should be raised to sustain the government, so that in such a contingency the people of the State maybe ready to meet any emergency that may come upon them.

The Executive, in his message, presented for your consideration the fol lowing figures, showing the probable receipts and disbursements of the present year:

The expenses of the present session of the Legislature are also to be provided for.

The above amount shows a deficiency on the 19th of January, 1861, of $817,827.10. The amount due Rangers alone for services rendered up to this period, amounts to at least $300,000, and unless means are adopted to pay their claims in money the same will depreciate, and no temporizing expedient can prevent that result. The government must go on performing its functions or anarchy will ensue, and to keep it in motion money is necessary. The frontier must be defended or the settlements must give way, and no matter what expedient may now be resorted to, both men and money must be had, and the Executive implores the Legislature not to wait until the call for men and money comes laden with the dying shrieks of women and children.

The Legislature may vouchsafe to the people of the frontier the privilege of protecting themselves at their own cost, depending upon promises to pay in the future; but such a policy will be found totally inadequate to the present emergency. Cash will be needed to purchase ammunition and supplies. By the Treasurer's report, received on Saturday, the 2d instant, it appears that there was then in the Treasury, subject to disbursement on account of State revenue, $5,279.69.

The Legislature has already appropriated $9,768.62 of the fund arising from University land' sales, and $17,313.30 of the fund accumulating from estates of deceased persons, for the per diem and mileage of its members, and it has only been by the use of these funds that the Treasury has been spared thus far from entire bankruptcy. The amount on hand will be exhausted before the termination of the present week, when there must be a suspension of specie payments altogether.