153
WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1330
for reasons which have lately arisen; and for causes which now exist. "By authority" from your Department, it has been stated, that I had sought to impose upon the Government on account of Indian Rations ; 3 and Mr. Blake 4 was the agent to asperse me, and Colonel McKinney 5 (whose influence is undoubted with you) the cause. And Sir, by the last advices it is understood here, that Colonel Crowell 0 was waiting at the city to take the contract for Indian rations "privately," and further that he has written to Mr. Blake (his) and Colonel McKinneys special Sub agent, to withdraw his bid, as it was the lowest put in for the contract, and then the bid (next lowest) of Mr. Prentiss another partner would get it! by the which, things would go on right! Matters c!osed and the cards set for dealing. If these things are false, I regret the im- putation to which they subject you- if true, they will out! I informed you, that the ration could be furnished, at seven cents, if the contract was culvertised, either ninety, or one hun- dred and twenty days (in A1·kansas) previous to its closing! For the present this letter shall suffice, as my intention is to address you shortly at more length, and it is most probable, that my next epistle will meet the public eye! The judgment will then belong to others, the Vindication to myself! In the meantime I will commence a series of numbers in the Arkansas Gazette signed Talohntusky, showing in what manner the agencies have been, and are now managed in this quarter. The innocent will not suffer, the guilty ought not to escape. In haste. Sam Houston Gen 1 John Eaton. P. S. The claim of $50,000, due the Cherokee:s, under the last Treaty is in a fair way to be swindled from tMm. If it is paid to the holders of those certificates paid in the name of Jolly and Black Fox, it will be a fraud, by the Government of the U. States upon the Cherokees. The Indians in the census are rated at some seventeen or eighteen hundred, when in fact, they exceed four thousand in number. H. [Endorsed] : Houston to Gen 1• Eaton. 1 Grnnt Foreman in Chronicles of Oklahoma, IX, 141-142. Mr. Foreman cites "Old Records Division," Adjutant General's Office, Washington, D.C., as his source for this letter.
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