PAPERS OF l\IIRABEAU B1.:o:YAPARTE LAMAR 583 justice could be done to Col. Bee.-With Col. Bee, I have been upon terms of the warmest personal and political intimacy since his first arrival in the country and have done him service unnecessary now to name.- This is unnecessary to the purpose of the present letter, but it is a sufficient answer to the ishue r sic] which your letter seems inclined to make up betwen Col. Bee, and myself.- Betwen us there can be no ishue.- He will inform your Excellenry, that from the first, I have been his true, unpretending and efficient friend- that my tent-my house-my purse, my warm and devoted friendship has been his.- A succinct history of the grounds upon which I have based the application for Dr. Archer, will satisfy your Excellency, more especially of this.- Near two years since, and soon after Colo. Bee' official insult and repulsion from Vera Cruz, I meet [sic] him, & Genl. Hamilton, at Galveston upon their return from this city, and Col. Bee, as the accredited minister to the United States, informed me that he wished to go temporarily to that court in order to complete the Mexican treaty in which he had been throughted f thwarterll at Vera Cruz.-This negociation was subsequently placed in other hands and I ]earned that your Excellency, was under promice to Genl. Hamil- ton, to send Col. Bee, to England or France.- ~ot content with understanding this your promise, I did not venture a suggestion as to his successor, no ! not when I heard that your Excellency intended to supply his place with Mr. Samuel A. Roberts,- I ratiently abided thr time when your will might be done in this respect.- Nor did I ever venture a suggestion as to Col. Bee,' successor, until l\Ir. Roberts, was installed in the more responsible and dignified station as the head of your cabinet councillors, and Col. Bee, had proclaimed it through many of the leading papers of the United States and Texas, that he intended to return here in November next.-A vacancy in that sit- uation would then necessarily happen, and Col. Bee returning-here at the close of your administration would preclude the idea of his longer residence at that court unless by the most unexpected political event he should be re-nominated by your successor.- It is plain then from these circumstances, and the date of my application in favor of Dr. Archer, that it was predicated not only upon Col. Bee,' published determination to return in November, but upon l\fr. Roberts', instala- tion as secretary of State, and your expressed intention to Dr. Archers filling this identical situation. These are the reasons which induced me, in connection with one more paramount still, the welfare of the country, to apply to your Excellency in favor of one wp.ose self deny- ing disinterestedness and exalted purity, never asked for anything- one who is allways foremost in the service of his country and friends, and allways hindmost in the service of himself. At the same time your Excellency accords to Dr. Archer, the most self denying disinterestedness· and exalted patriot- ism; you seem to wonder at his not asking for this appointment; the rloing of whif'h "·onlrl be a calummy upon that single heated rhearteill purity, you allow him to possess, which alone know him as the "Old Roman"- the "father of tbe revolution."- Rut it was snffo,irnt that ench and nll of your cabinet whose age and experience is thought valuable, joined me with zeal in the recommendation. The presumption is, that we know Dr.
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