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WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1855
counterfeit; therefore, it was a counterfeit company, with Robert J. Walker, the great Secretary of the Treasury for its President, a man who was never known to pay a debt. All his money goes into the sinking fund; his wife lives like a queen and he is a boarder. Then there was another who was never known to pay a debt, or to do an honorable action-T. Jeff. Dog Green. There was an ex-President who took $2,000,000. What a figure I could cut before my fellow citizens with my naine to $2,000,000 of stock. There was Mr. Chatfield, quite a respectable man, and by far the best of the lot. Then there was T. Butler King, of California memory,-a Georgian, who came up short to the government $170,000, he is a boarde1· too. The newspapers puffed them ~nd they published a book to show that they were backed by respon- sible parties, but pretty soon the bona, fide men got scared and drew out of the company. There was a man at Memphis named Fowlke, who had done more mischief, ruined more men, and broke more banks, than anybody else, and this man they got into their service. He got a charter for a bank from the Legislature of Tennessee, and commenced business by issuing 9200 shares of stock to Messrs. Walker and King, and they then succeeded in getting $2000 in New York state stocks. These were tendered Gov. Pease, but he would not accept them as a good deposit. They went off and returned with the stock of the Sussex Iron Paint mine, and Whitewash company. The President of the company showed that they would make $1,500,000 profit out of the $500,000 invested in the mine; the Governor of New Jersey certified to the value of the stock, and Hon. Geo. M. Dallas, Ex- Vice President of the United States, gave his certificate. Then Chancellor Kent who had been dead eight years, was recusitated in the person of a little New Jersey Judge, named William Kent, who was dubbed chancellor for the occasion; yet with all this array of distinguished authorities, Governor Pease had the cour- age and firmness to refuse the Iron and Paint mine stock. Now Mr. Walker says in his book that to obtain the deposit cost a great deal of trouble and time, and as they never deposited but $2,000, the Memphis bank and Sussex Iron Company stock being worthless, this proves by their own statement that the whole company was not worth·$2,000. Gen. Houston said, T. Jefferson Green and others went to Mar- shall and got up the new company of 17 Texians, who were intended to act as an outward pressure on Gov. Pease. He com- mented severely on the actions of Walker and King; said that
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