91
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1854
Mr. President, it may be thought that the explanations in which I have engaged here are attacks upon individuals. They are not. They are to repel attacks made upon myself as a Senator, and upon the President of Texas as an officer. In no instance has the President of Texas or the Senator from Texas made an attack on any individual. He has repelled the attacks made, and he has carried retaliation home. He has brought to pass in public review the character and facts connected with individuals who have assailed him; but he has not sought to assail the privacy of any man, nor to attack any man. All that he has said has been taken from the records of the country. If he did not embody them in a book before, he is now entitled to use them in repelling charges contained in books, and calumnies circulated both publicly and privately against him. I wish it understood that I attack no man whatever. I charge no man with an offense of which he is not guilty, and I will use history, so far as it is necessary, to repel charges made against me to vindicate myself from the defama- tions of creatures who have sunk so low that the resurrecting influence of memory can never recall them to the position of honorable men. But, sir, before I conclude, there is another matter to which I wish to refer. After this fellow had effected his escape from the prison of Perote, he came to Messrs. Hargous, rich merchants of Vera Cruz, who extended generosity to all Texians, and taking advantage of their known generosity and sympathy in behalf of Texas, borrowed three hundred dollars, and gave them a draft on John T. Green, of New Orleans, and also another amount for which he gave them a draft on the treasury of Texas for two hundred and fifty or three hundred dollars. In Vera Cruz he was secreted by Mr. Hargous. From there he went to New Orleans. Hargous sent an agent by the name of Young to collect the drafts: At New Orleans, Young found T. J. Green, but no John T. Green, there being no such man. He at once called upon T. J. Green, who said, "Oh, I will fix it all for you," which he did, by making tracks for Texas. Young wrote to the•President of Texas, stating the transaction, and detailing Green's conduct, and suggesting that though he could not expect to get the money out of which he had been swindled, he would put the President on his guard against him as a dishonest man. This was unnecessary; for he was known in Texas. Subsequently the Legislature called on the President for any information in his possession in relation to money advanced to the Mier prisoners, or othe1· prisoners in Mexico. The President, in response, communicated by message
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