WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1854
4S
by any statements which he may make or may have made. In this part of the case I will have reference to record testimony, and to nothing less than record testimony. I will, in the first place, show that he has drawn at several times of late years, as agent of claims of administrator, large sums of money, or its equivalent, from the State Treasury, which have not been ac- counted for, so far as the Government is informed. How haP- pened it that he was an administrator of estates? Relatives are the proper persons for administration; for if they squander the estate, they are interested parties. We find that there was a Lieutenant Cummings who served with the Commodore. This Lieutenant confided his claims to Commodore Moore, and he drew $2,052.01 from the treasury at Austin for the lieutenant, and not one cent of that amount has he ever paid over to him. He alleged that he was robbed, on his passage from Galveston to New Orleans; but he never gave notice of it on board the steam- boat on which he said the robbery took place, nor did he apprise the gentleman whose money it was, for months after, when he was called upon. He was also administrator of the estate of J. T. K. Lothrop, an associate in arms, and he recovered for him the sum of $3,766. This sum would have been of great benefit to the rela- tives of Lieutenant Lothrop, but he did not pay it to them. I believe, however, that they have now put under injunction some of the certificates of the indebtedness of Texas which he received for those claims. But that I may not be misapprehended in relation to this Commodore's integrity, I will refer to another case, which was examined and acted on by the Legislature of Texas. It is the case of Fleming T. Wells, deceased, late purser of the Texan navy. It appears that the committee on the Texas debt had referred to them an application on the part of the legatees of the deceased Mr. Wells, for relief. They could not obtain a certificate on which to draw the money, Commodore Moore having drawn and transferred the same to a third party; and the application was to enable them to draw the money without the certificate, and at the same time to abrogate or to destroy the certificate which had been given to Moore as administrator. Wells, the brother of the deceased, went to Texas, applied for letters of administration, which were granted; and those under which Moore had acted were revoked. As the certificate of claim had been drawn by Moore, and transferred to a third party, Wells filed an injunction to stop its payment at the
Powered by FlippingBook