WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 185tt
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you will send me the enclosed back, without delay. Yours E. W. Moore." [to] Mrs. Nancy Wilbur." 11 This was in 1852, although the original power of attorney was in 1848. I do not know what the object of this could be. In February last, however, when I was in New York city, this lady called upon me, and gave me information of all the facts. From my knowledge of the Wells case, and other cases of the same sort, I told her I could give her little or no encouragement or' hope that she would obtain the money, but that I would do every- thing in my power for the purpose of securing it to her. She told me her destitution; that she had a little boy dependent upon her, and that all her means was exhausted in sustaining her husband while he was suffering under his wounds. I need not say that I sympathized with her. I thought it was a very hard case, and I was very willing to do all that I could for her. I wrote immediately to the Governor of Texas, stating what Mrs. Wilbur had represented, in order to ascertain whether the money had been drawn by Commodore Moore ; and I desired, if it had not been drawn, to arrest the payment of it at the treasury, and save the money for Mrs. Wilbur. I was answered on the 29th of March, 1854. The following is an extract from that answer: "I find the claim of Lieutenant D. C. Wilbur, for services in the navy, amounting to $684.93, audited, and the certificate, or draft, delivered May 2, 1851, to E. W. Moore, on the authority of a power of attorney granted to him by Mrs. Wilbur." Mr. President, was not this really a hard case? ·what could be the object of his getting the second power of attorney in 1852, when he had drawn the ·certificate in 1851? The lady, a few days since, called at this place with a friend, to ascertain what it meant. She applied to the Commodore, and he gave her no information, except that he told her he had sent the certificate to Texas. The second power of attorney was surely of no use, unless it was to delude her, and throw her off her guard, and keep up her expectation. Where that certificate is I cannot say. I will not say that it was transferred, as the certificates of Wells and Lothrop were; but the truth is, that the poor lady could not get the certificate, and, with her orphan child, she returned disconsolate to her· needy home, without meeting that reward to which she was entitled on account of the services of her gallant husband in the cause of Texas.
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