172
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1850
Texas has no rights upon that river. This, sir, is the persecution meted out to us, arising from these prejudices, and which now seeks to inflict upon us the humiliating blow of an infringement upon our State sovereignty. But, sir, this is not all. There was another most extraordinary letter, written from Monterey on the 10th June, 1847, from which I will read an extract: "Sir, I have ordered the muster of the company of mounted Texas volunteers alluded to in my letter of June 8th. It is enrolled for the v,,ar, and commanded by H. W. Baylor. Major McCullough's company has been discharged, and we have now five companies of Texas horse, the exact number laid down in your memorandum of April 26th. "I regret to report that many of the twelve months' volun- teers, on their route hence, on the lower Rio Grande, have com- mitted extensive depredations and outrages upon the peaceful inhabitants: There is scarcely a form of crime that has not been reported to me as committed by them; but they have passed beyond my reach, and even if they were here it would be found next to impossible to detect the individuals who thus disgrace their colors and their country. Were it possible to rouse the Mexican people to resistance, no more effectual plan could be devised than the very one pursued by some of our volunteer regi- ments now about to be discharged. "The volunteers for the war, so far, give an earnest of better conduct, with the exception of the companies of Texas horse. Of the infantry, I have had little or no complaint; but the mounted men from Texas have scarcely mcule an expedition without un- warrantably killing a Mexican!" What an atrocity, sir !-killing a Mexican upon an expedition! Kill a Mexican! Monstrous in the face of day! Kill a Mexican! Why, sir, we hear of no such complains when battalions fell at Monterey-I will not say how disposed of. We hear no such sympathetic complaints then. But killing one Mexican! Oh, what a deed! Well, I grant you that, wherever there are in- stances of criminal injustice and outrage being inflicted by the military, its authors deserve severe punishment;· but a spirit of justice would suggest a course of propriety in this respect which would punish the real offender, and have a moral influence on all around him. This is not done where whole corps are thus stig- matized and denounced.
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