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WRITINGS OF SA:M HOUSTON, 1852
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mission on which he was delegated. He took upon himself, while his colleague was prostrated, to obtain a secret council with the Indians. The talk was held on a show of authority, which he took from Texas, which gave him credit with the Indians. He took this insignia, and exhibited it to them, and they heard him. His promise to them was that they should receive an annuity of $14,000. They were to keep perpetual peace-no horses were to be stolen, no lives to be taken, no habitations to be burned. The Indians, in perfect good faith, and in entire confidence from the terms which were held out, and the high character of their neighbors, the Texans, came in, and signed their names to a sheet of blank paper. The commissioner returned-his colleague, the gallant _Butler, being at the time prostrated and detained by sickness-and attached these signatures to a treaty, which he prepared to suit his own purposes and designs, excluding the annuity entirely, and merely allowing a single appropriation of $14,000. The President. The Chair is very unwilling to interrupt the Senator, but must remind him that the proposition now before the Senate relates wholly to the Indians in California. Mr. Houston. I am aware of it, but I am anxious to show, if possible, that the appropriation of this $100,000 may avert a war, which would possibly cost as many millions as the Muscogee war, or the war in Florida. It is with that view that I am now speaking. The Indians came at the appointed time to the place where they were to receive their annuity;· the annuity was not paid them; enraged, they were about to plunder the frontier; a Senator from Texas received the intelligence while on his way to this place; and he wrote instantly to induce them to stay their hands for five days; the Indians granted the truce, otherwise the trad- ing-house would have been rifled and the building burned. The express returned in time with instructions to pay them $5,000, and if that were not sufficient they were to receive $10,000. It was done, and war was averted for twelve months; the peace was prolonged for two years by meang of promises; and thus a war was prevented which might have drenched the frontier in blood. Then, sir, on the evidence of the vouchers of the merchants, Congress supplied them with $10,000, so that we yet justly owe to the Comanches $4,000. This is a fact. To what, then, has it led? No more annuities were given. A new Administration commenced. The agent who had been employed in Texas, and
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