WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1826
49
sacred benefits growing out of the Confederation? Sir, if Con- gress were to tender remuneration for acts thus stigmatized and denounced by the People of Massachusetts, they ought certainly to consider it unconstitutional in them to receive it. It would be an insult to their magnanimity- to the principles avowed in the addresses of their governor, and responded to by their immediate Representatives, to suppose them capable of receiving compensa- tion for such acts. · Mr. Chairman, I find from the documents .before the House, that the Government, on the recommendation of certain select- men of the villages in that State, who reported to him the number of troops requisite for its defense, issued an order for "a good sergeant and twelve men," to defend the town against the enemy. And this, Sir, while the Capitol was yet smoking. And further, Sir;-a Captain Baggett, commander of a British armed vessel, made a requisition on the inhabitants of the town of Brewster, for $4,000, as the price for security to a salt works near that town. But mark you, Sir, the condition on which this favor was granted. If the salt works remained the property of any of the good people, then they were to be spared; but if they became the property of the United States, the bargain was to be at an end, and there was to be no guarantee for their safety. But how, Sir, was he to know when they became the property of the Govern- ment? vVere any of the good people of Massachusetts to inform him? I do not know how they may have managed things to the Eastward, but, for myself, I should have preferred holding com- munion with the enemy, at the point of the bayonet, or rather at fifty yards distance, with a musket ball. At times we find the Governor suggesting to the Department of War, that when indi- viduals come to draw arms, they evinced a disinclination to be called from their homes. A pretty employment, truly, for a commander-in-chief, responsible to the Government of the coun- try, to be thus consulting men who came to draw arms, and, consequently to receive his orders! He alleges, that some of these citizens objected to being called out, though on what grounds ·he does not state; but he thought fit to take advice from men , 1 vho thought more of their homes and their leisure, than of the safety and independence of their country. He has urged as an excuse, that he understood that the governor of Nova Scotia had issued a proclamation, the dictate, no doubt, of his own benevolent dis- position, and his friendly feelings towards this Government, that there should be no invasion of our territory. Massachusetts,
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