PAPERS OF MIRABEAU BuoNAPARTE LAMAR 65 graceful and odious captivity, your flag of truce insulted, and its bearer incarcerated in a vile prison ship; your frontier exposed from Red River to Corpus Christi, to canibal ferocity; your men and chil- dren scalped and murdered; your women violated, and carried into savage servitude ;-and in the face of all this, for you to have been the constant advocate and panegyrist of its Indian authors, you could not have been more abused-for the short history of our country shows this black catalogue of treasonable neglects and treasonable violations, without the abuse you have received. Yea, you might have swelled this dark list of wrongs with an imperial tyranny unheard of in republican governments, to the striking from the army and navy rolls, officers of high character & merit, without the form of trial, and of confiscat- ing their pay by closing the auditorial courts against the pitious cries of their" wives and children for bread; you might have capped the climax of the most tyrannical insolence ever uttered in a free country, by pronouncing in the face of Congress the most exalted praise of the Cherokee Indians, and at the same time insulting the people of Texas by pronouncing them "a nation of beggars." To these, you might have added a wanton disregard of official duty by the most sottish indul- gence; for these things we have seen and heard; and the most aston- ishing of all, was the patient sufferance with which they wer[e] borne. As humble citizens of this republic, who claim to feel solicitude in its welfare second to none, we rejoice in your Adminis- tration-because the reverse of these things have happened-because you have mastered the Gulf of Mexico .with a N avy--:-because you have organized an army, efficient and well appointed-because you are giv- ing protection and security to our vast frontier-and of all things else, because you have most gloriously expelled from the midst of us the Cherokee Indians, our most insidious and serpent like enemy. In this we rejoice more espicially, because you have most manfully de- fended our national integrity, and the vested rights of a large portion of our citizens disgracefully compromitted by a violation of law, and a treasonable surrender to those vile wretches. · We do not wish your Excellency to understand that in all the unimportant matters of your Administration, we would have done likewise, but we are bold to believe, that upon the whole, no man could have done better, and few indeed as well-for which you are entitled to the gratitude of your country and the homage of pos- terity. With sentiments of politically, we subscribe ourselves Servants (signed) high regard for you personally & your Excellency's Obedient humble
Thos. J. Green B. T. Archer Wm. T. Austin John Sharp L. H. McNeel Ambrose Crane G. M. Stone Edwd. Waller 99 J. C. Hoskins-
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