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delicate conslilulion, lo relinquish the duties and fati•~ues of office, and he obtained permission to visit the United Stares. The vacancy was not filled until after the battle of 21st Ajiril, when James Collinsworth who had raised his chivalry conspicuous amidst a crowd of heroes, was inducted lo that office. Mr. Hardiman, the Secretary of the Treasury, reached the camp before me. The Secretary of the Navy was also there. The Secretary of War, .Mr. Rusk, had been in camp for some weeks. Peter W. Grayson, Esq., was invited to and accepted the office of Attorney General, which had become vacant hy the premature and accidental death of the Honorable David Thomas, after l arrived al camp. The great battle and the consequences flowing and lo flow from it, were soon introduced as subjects of deliberation. Among the first incidents to that discussion, and before any regular Cabinet meeting was had, was the presentation to me of a protocal of a treaty, in pencil, comprising 7 or 8 articles, by Mr. Rusk the Secretary of War. These articles I subsequently used as a guide in drawing up the first entire formula of a treaty that was ever com milled lo paper by this infant Republic, and the spirit of the penciled articles were preserved in that formula. The treaty which I drew up received the sanction of the entire Cabinet, the Secretary of the Navy excepted, and was intended lo be submitted lo the Mexican President, as the will of the Government of Texas. The discussions of the Cabinet were animated and drawn to a considerable length. But it is a source of gratification lo me, that no boisterous or acrimonious disputation has ever occurred in the Cabinet consultations of this Government: that a mutual respect, and a d.igni fiecl urbanity have characterized all its deliberations. Differences of opinion have frequently happened, but they have been disposed of according lo the peculiar constitution of the government "ad interim" by a majority of votes, the President exercising no other prerogative than voting. The original Secretaries, it will be remembered were nominated and elected by the Convention simultaneously with the election of the Chief Magistrate, and as it is natural for men lo construe their own powers liberally, it is not much to be marvelled at, that they should expect under an organization so novel and indefinite, lo exercise an equal authority in the Cabinet Council, with the executive head of the government. The only consequences that I
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