As usual, I am much pressed with business.
With high regard Your friend and Obt Svt David G. Burnet
(2515)
[BURNET to TRIPLETT and GRAY]
Executive Department Harrishurgh April 1st 1836
To Messrs. Robert Triplet & WiUiam F Gray- Gentn.
In pursuance of the ordinance of the late convention refcring the ratification or the compromise of the loan or loans made and Stipulated by yourselves and you associates, with Messrs Austin, Archer, & Wharton, commissioners on the part of Texas. I remark that, after full, deliberate and anxious consultation, with the several members of the cabinet, and by and with the advice and consent of my said Cabinet, I have arrived at the following conclusion; 1st. The Executive Government is anxious, above all things to preserve inviolate the faith of the nation: and are wiUing to make any reasonable sacrifice for this purpose.- 2d, We feel verry sencibly, the delicate and embarrising circum• stances under which the loans were negotiated: and hence arise many objections to availing ourselves of certain abstract principles, which justify a prompt rejection by this government of the whole transaction.- 3d We consider the 5th article of the principal contract of 11th January last, no satisfactory modification of which has been proposed, as altogether incompatible with the interest of the country, and as tending inevitably to paralise all future financial operations predicated on the public lands. 4th That no regard however scrupulous, to public faith can or ought lo require an absolute surrender and sacrifice of the highest public interest, to considerations of delicacy, or to a reluctance, to disappoint the reasonable expectations of gentlemen, who may have manifested a generous disposition to aid us by loaning their money at a most unpropitious period of our affairs. 5th. That it is verry obvious that the worthy commissioners, whose known patriotism and integrity are beyond all imputation of wilfull error, did transcend their powers, by contracting lo alienate a
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