[2636] [BRYAN to BURNET]
Agency of Texas New Orleans April 8th 1836
His Ex the President of the Republic of Texas, Sir
I had the honour to address you under date of the 6th which you will receive with this. In which I refered particularly to the contract made with Thos F McKinney Esq in regard to the sum in the Bank of Orleans, since which from the advice of all the friends of Texas here, & from the documents we inclose, I have thought proper to place an injunction on the Bank of Orleans forbiding them to pay the sum to Toby & Brother, in justification of which measure bold as it may appear to you, I respectfully present the following reasons. First the letters of Mr McKinny in which he acknowledges that the credit of Texas is prostrated unless the sum is paid to the Agency. Second. We have pledged the honour of the agency to meet certain Cash demands out of that sum, & have the written pledge of the Commissions that the sum should be so appropriated. Thirdly Gen Green advised us that at the time of making the arrangement with Mr McKinny, you had no papers, or advices, from this agency, that you were under the impression Toby & Bro had fitted out your Navy & had forwarded you all the supplies you had received, that you were totally unacquainted with the existence of this Agency, and had you known the circumstances, you never would have passed the available funds into his hands, and lastly that the agreement never would have been made by the government unless through misrepresentions, and the surpression of the papers of the agency. For these reasons, & further thatthe salvation of the credit of Texas rested on this bold and energetic measure, that had I not done it & by it assured the public creditors of my determination to support my own honour as a merchant, & the public faith of the country, I should have been arrested & my own property would have been sacraficed to meet the public debts, I have also the expressed opinion of Gen Green, Wm Christy, Capt H Austin & a number of others to sustain me in my actions, and last hut not least the evidence of Mr McKinny himself, that the safety of the public credit imperiously demanded such measure. I have advised Toby & Bro of the measures taken, having first endeavored to
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