WRITINGS OF SAl\l l-IoUSTON, lU:.33
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this government, and charged for in the account of Mr. T. Jl!fr,:r- son Chambers, so that the orders of this government were vj,,-. lated with a knowledge of their existence; therefore, nQ juHt cam- plaint can be advanced against the executive for the courHe whi ;h he pursued in relation to not receiving those men into servi~. They never were disbanded in the streets of this city, b,~ u:;e they never were received into service; and Colonel A. S. Thrus- ton,0 Commissary General, in New Orleans, assured them th"'t they would not be received, and that if they came at all, it mu~ be at the personal expense of Mr. Thomas Jefferson Chambers, as they had first set out, so they persisted in direct violation of orders, incurring no trifling expense to the government at a time when there were more troops in the field than the government was able either to clothe or provision. These facts correctly stated, are sufficient to vindicate the Ex- ecutive from all imputation of injustice or oppression towards Col. Sherman or the troops. Col. Sherman, therefore, introduced no troops into the country under his contingent commission. He was never struck from the rolls of the army. He could not claim rank only according to law. At the re-organization of the army, Col. Sherman was not re- tained, and, of course, he could not have claims to pay and per- quisites from the passage of the law reorganizing the army. It will be seen from his instructions accompanying his con- tingent commission derived from the government ad interim,, that he had only authority to recruit until the first of November, 1836, from which time I am not advised he received any instructions from this department. Col. Sherman has received a very con- siderable amount of scrip, as near as the Executive can ascertain, about $6,000 which he has not yet accounted for, to his knowl- edge, nor any portion of it. That Col. Sherman ought to be allowed a fair commission on the purchases he made on account of the government would be right and proper, but to be allowed the pay of colonel of cavalry for duties which could as well be performed by a lieutenant, seems, to the Executive, to be a course that would be destructive to our Treasury. If the door was once open to those who held contingent com- missions, and introduced no aid to the country, and many of whom have never since been in the country, and they were to be paid according to the shewing of their commissions without ref- erence to the resolution of the 30th of November, a sum less than
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