89
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1854
February, and none of the men had been lost during that time. But, sir, ultimately sixty-seven lives were sacrificed to this man's filibustering, marauding, and robbing propensities. Yes, sir, sixty- seven gallant, brave men, who deserved a better fate. Of these sixty-seven men, but seventeen of them seem to claim his special sympathy, having perished by his contrivance and perfidious advice. How does he account for the loss of the other fifty gallant spirits who perished under his marauding guidance, and the in- fluence of his dastardly prnpensity for robbery and spoil? It was well enough for him to limit his sympathy to the seventeen unfortunate prisoners who were decimated and executed, as there can be but little room for any manly or honorable feeling in a heart so gorged with vituperation and slander. But, sir, I said I would show that Santa Anna was a magnan- imous man. After all the indignity inflicted upon him, at the mouth of the Brazos by this Green, when he had him in his power Santa Anna spared him, and did not execute him like a felon, but he showed him mercy. I admit it was ill-directed mercy, but yet it was magnanimity. Green had offered indignity and insult to Santa Anna; he had sought to degrade him when a prisoner, and yet Santa Anna spared his life when the motion of a finger would have dispatched him, and relieved the world of this putrescent piece of mortality. To prove that the President of Texas was not responsible for the decimation and execution of the Mier prisoners, as charged by this fellow Green, I could appeal to an honorable gentleman from Texas, now present in this Cham- ber [General Memucan Hunt]. The capture took place on the 26th of December. On the 18th of January following, General Hunt, who had been out in the campaign, who had marched as a private soldier under General Sommerville, who had won the admiration of the whole army by his soldierlike, manly, and chivalrous con- duct, wrote an account as to the scenes of Mier, in which he bore testimony to all that I have said. He came to Houston, in Texas, and published to the world the facts connected with the Mier expedition. He showed that it had gone unauthorizedly. He did not condemn it, but merely gave the historical facts. That was on the 18th of January, so that by the end of the month the news would be in possession of Santa Anna; and yet he suspended all vengeance until March afterwards, and until the rising of the prisoners upon the guard. What, then, was the use of the Presi- dent of Texas saying it was against law? \.Vas it not known by General Hunt's letter, (in which he detailed the facts) that Colon;! Fisher, Green, and others, had deserted from the command of"
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