[3880] [BURNET to RUSK]
Executive Department Velasco 5 August 1836
To Brig. Genl. T. J. Rusk Commg. Sir,
Your letter of 31. ulto. with its accompaniments I had the
pleasure to receive this morning.
If the Order of which you send me a copy was the only one as I presume it was, under which Lieut. Colonel Millard acted on his late eventful visit to Velasco, then that Officer has been guilly of a high misdemeanor for which his expulsion from the Army is a mild and lenient retribution. Soon after the establishment of his "Head Quarters" at this place, he issued and actually passed to Capt. A. Turner of the Regular Army a formal Order for my arrest and for seizing all my papers. That Order was subscribed by himself as acting under the Order of the Commanding General. The Order was not positively served, Capt. Turner having had prudence and good sense enough to abstain from doing so. But it was exhibited to me and was for some hours in my possession. The fact that it was deliberately passed to Capt. Turner was to all intents and purposes an overt Act of Sedition on the part of Colonel Millard for which some atonement is due to the insulted dignity of the Civil power of Texas. The Order was followed by a long tissue of Charges and specifications subscribed by a certain Mr. Wheelock, a personage whom I have never yet had the honor of seeing. If these transactions had relation only to myself individually, they would be too insignificant for further notice. But they are of higher concernment. The good people of Texas have been insulted & outraged in the person of their Chief .Magistrate- A violent Revolution has been attempted, involving the overthrow of the Civil Authority, and evidently intended to create a Military Supremacy in the Government. The moral influence of this pernicious attempt has been felt, for the fact of its having been made has gone abroad among the people and it is difficult to say what evil consequences may
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