WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1855
185
He congratulated the people of the country upon their present prospects with their beautiful prairies dotted with fine farms and handsome dwellings, in contrast with their condition at the time the battle was fought that saved the country. He said that he came here not for display. The results of the battle of San Jacinto were sufficient for his ambition. After the battle was fought and independence gained, the sub- ject of annexation was agitated. Some were opposed to annexa- tion, believing a separate government was preferable, but he differed with them in opinion; and the course of some of the Presidents of Texas proved the correctness of his position-by giving large appropriations to defaulters to the Government, and to the piratical excursions of Moore, and the Santa Fe Expedition. He said, as annexed, Texas had unbounded resources. In her settlement of boundaries with the United States, she had obtained ten millions of dollars for a strip of country that she had no more right to than she had to any man's land within his hearing. He said he had been much slandered and abused, especially in this neighborhood; and, lest the new settlers should believe them after hearing them so often repeated, he would give a review of the battle of San Jacinto, for their information. He said, while encamped upon the Colorado, with his little army of between five and six hundred men, he learned that Santa Anna, with his two divisions of the Mexican army, was on the line of march for Eastern Texas, to form an alliance with several large tribes of Indians and the Mexicans of Eastern Texas, in order to overrun the country.-He determined to fall back and intercept their march, and give them battle the first favorable opportunity. Upon his arrival at the Brasos, he learned that the President and Cabinet and the Convention that framed the Constitution, had broken up from Washington and run, and in their affright and confusion, had thrown the papers and the proceedings all at random into a common sack, and pushed down the Brasos to Groce's retreat, where they finished their labors by framing the future Constitution, in the following manner, as he was informed by Bill Jack, by and by, a very smart clever fellow: The Secre- tary would put his hand in the bag and pull out a paper containing a proposition, and hold it up, and the President would put the question to the Convention: "Shall the proposition pass?" And when there happened to come out two propositions upon the same subject, the Secretary would hold one in each hand, and the Presi- dent would put the question thus: "Shall the proposition held
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