WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1854
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They had violated the armistice granted to them; and for that, and nothing else, they were punished. As a defense for his own conduct, and to shield his malignity from the Texians, he pre- tends that the decimation took place in consequence of a letter written by the President of Texas to the British Minister," and communicated through him to the Mexican President. On the contrary, so soon as it was ascertained that this command had been captured at Mier, the Executive of Texas instantly wrote to her Britannic Majesty's charge d'affaires at Galveston, request- ing the kind offices of her Majesty's Government in Mexico on behalf of the prisoners, and urging that it mattered not under what circumstances they had gone there, for the very fact of a capitulation entitled them to all privileges and protection as pris- oners of war; and he demanded, through her Majesty's Govern- ment, that, as such, they should be regarded and protected. How was this perverted? The truth was open to this fellow; but he never tried to obtain it. He never applied where the records were, to ascertain what the President wrote to the British charge d'affaires; but, in the City of Mexico, he went about to Mr. Doyle,6 Mr. Waddy Thompson, 0 and others-not going to the source where he could have easily obtained it. But a pestilent filibuster, insult- ing those gentlemen of dignity, by attempting to enter into corre- spondenc_e with them, and because they did not choose to give him a copy of the letter, he assumed that the President wrote that they had "gone there contrary to law and orders; and yet begged mercy for them." That is the ground of all his abuse-charging the President with having conspired against their lives, and mur- dered them in cold blood. Upon that assumed hypothesis are based some of the choice extracts which I will now read: "A perishing remembrance of exalted patriotism, but a lasting one of the infamy of their President, Sam Houston, who caused them to be falsely executed as robbers and marauders upon Mexico.'' "The Executive of Texas had slandered all the Mier prisoners, had murdered some, had starved by piece-meal many, and basely insulted the remainder when in chains.'' "No man of sane intellect can doubt for a moment that Presi- dent Houston was the malicious, vindictive, cold-blooded author of the execution of the Mier prisoners." "He who deals in falsehood is ever in danger of self-conviction, and such has been President Houston's misfortune.''
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