[3120) [BURNET to BRISCOE]
Velasco May 21st, 1836
.My Dear Sir: -
Your favor of the 19th inst. is just received. It gives me an unfeigned and somewhat unusual pleasure to be had in Texas, to recognize in your letter feelings and the sentiments of genuine, unsophisticated friendship. It is a manifestation that is peculiarly gratifying to me at this time. You will, therefore, accept my sincere thanks for it. I am not aware that any extraordinary privileges are granted the President, Santa Anna. He and his suite arc confined lo a small house, which is constantly patrolled by a guard consisting of two soldiers with the usual reliefs. He is treated, I believe, with the respect due his rank and condition. This is in accordance with my views of propriety, and for this I am willing to be responsible before the world. If he should escape, an event which I do not think at all probable, the fault will not be mine, but I am sensible the responsibility would, however unjust the imputatio,~ would be. I have from the beginning strenuously opposed the murdering policy, and so long as I retain a sense of my paramount responsibility to my God, I will continue to do so, though every man in Texas act otherwise. The idea of a judicial trial is too great an absurdity for sensible men to entertain. The Chiefs of the beligerenl nations have never yet been thought amenable lo the courts of the enemy Country, for any of their official acts. A cold blooded massacre, even when it might be justified ·by a rigid interpretation of the lex taliones would elevate either the moral reputation or the actual moral feelings of the people of Texas. It would be revolting to every feeling heart throughout the world, and I have yet to learn any one benefit that would result from it. Santa Anna dead is no more than Tom, Dick or Harry dead, but, living, he may avail Texas much. From these brief terms you may deduce my views. I know the popular jealousies, that men are always ready Lo impute to others the atrocities which they themselves are capable of, and are slow Lo believe that others can act from higher or purer motives than influence themselves. Such men are found all the world over, and they are not scarce in Texas. But I hope helter things of
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