322
THE AUSTIN PAPERS
arrive before the operation of protesting commences. You Mr. Byrom are too well acquainted with fiscal matters not to know that public credit like a woman's reputation once lost is seldom regained, never without time and difficulty. I solicit your immediate attention to these subjects as one in- volving all our interests and all our hopes in an eminent degree- I take the liberty to call your attention to the insecurity and improvidence of authorizing numerous receiving and disbursing agents of the public money without connection with or accountability to the chief or foreign Agent of the Government. Champaigne and laced uniforms will not kill Mexicans though they be merged in charges for naval or military stores, and it would be absurd to expect that young and inexperienced officers unacquainted with business would disburse money placed in their hands to fit out an arm~d ship or equip a regiment with that economy and judgement indispensable for the success of such a cause as ours which can only be sustained br the most prompt and vigorous exertions and the most frugal use of the scanty means at our command. The commissioners have in my opinion made a most judicious selection of Agents in Mr. William Bryan and Mr Edward Hall, Gentlemen of sound integrity and sufficient capital not involved in extensive business or specu- lations ~ml whose books accounts and vouchers shew them tc be weil acquainted to the necessity of transacting public business with such scrupu- lous exactness as to enable them to submit an exhibit of their doings to the most rigid scrutiny.- There appears to be an effort making to procure a separation of the agency giving to a new agent the control of the money and to the others the present agents the burthen of the work and responsi- bility that is the purchase and shipment of s1:1pplies correspondence and forwarding of ".Olunteers etc. this will be impolitic and unjust in the ex- treme, I believe you will so view it and I beg your strenuous opposition to such a measure should it be proposed. The neglect of the fiscal concerns of Texas has heretofore been ·ascribed to the unfortunate quarrel of the execu- tive with the council but now that the convention has been organized a month and nothing done I am forced to the conclusion that the corre• spondence of the agents with the Government and the needful information on this subject may have been witheld from that body. I feel it my duty to apprize you of the alarming excitement which the capture by one of our cruisers in the Sisal Roads of a schooner owned by an american merchant resident in Campeachy and a house here, wearing the Mexican flag for the benefit of difference in import duty has produced in this city. If our armed vessels are to be employed to rob the very citizens of this city who furnished the money to purchase them, of the property which they think proper to ship to Mexico under cover of the Mexican flag for greater profit instead of being directed to protect the commerce between the United States and Texas and to prevent the transportation of provisions and troops by sea to the army of
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