WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1853 381 with a very bad grace from the United States to become admin- istrator on the affairs of Texas, and to determine what are her liabilities. The amount of $5,000,000 that was reserved in the Treasury of the United States was reserved at the instance of creditors, who were importuning and surrounding Senators here when legislating on this subject. Some sagacious lawyer had dis- covered that the United States were liable when they acquired Texas, and received from her means which were intended for the liquidation of her debts. It was not intended by that reserva- tion to determine what the debts of Texas were, but only the debts of a certain character for which the Government of the United States might possibly be held liable. When were they to pay these debts? When ascertained by Texas, and certified to the Treasury of the United States. That was the object of retaining the $5,000,000, as I understood it at the time, and I voted upon the subject in all good faith and confidence, satisfied, as I was, that the amount upon which the impost duties of Texas were pledged did not amount to $5,000,000, and that there would be a large residuum to Texas of that amount. The President and Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, after the passage of that bill, determined, in effect, that the Government of the United States were liable for all the debts of Texas. It will be remembered that in the administration of the Government of Texas from 1841 down to the time of the annexation in 1845, there was not one dollar of debt incurred, nor one liability created. From December, 1841, when the exchequer system was established, and the immense issues of $12,000,000 were suspended, $200,000 was the amount of th• currency established by law, and that commenced to issue at the rate of a hundred cents on the dollar. A combination WM directly formed of brokers and speculators, gentlemen alien to Texas, who wanted to filibuster, and subvert the Government, right or wrong, who said that if they were not admitted into its control or made participants of it, they would subvert it, if by no other way, by revolution. They combined, and by their combination immediately reduced the value of that currency from a hundred cents to seventy-five, and at one time it went down as low as twenty-five cents on the dollar. By economical issues, by extreme economy in the Government, the value rose again. But the Legislature, which met annually, consumed a large
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