WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1838
244
To ASHBEL SMITH. SURGEON GENERAL1
31st May, 1838. If you have cash purchase the note which my friend Wilson 2 may present on such terms as may be just, and so soon as I can, I will pay and lift it. My cash is exhausted!!! Sam Houston Surgeon General Ashbel Smith Present. P. S. I am sorry to hear that you are not well. I will call and see you this Evening S. H. [Addressed] : To Doct. Ashbel Smith Surgeon General Texas Mr. Hoyle. 3 1 Ashbel Smith Papers, The University of Texas Library. 2 Evidently Robert Wilson, who was a close friend of Houston. See Houston to Robert A. Irion, February 2, 1837. 3 Probably Stephen Z. Hoyle, at this time a clerk in the Auditor's depart- ment. Later Hoyle (1842) was Secretary of the Senate for the Seventh Congress, and was the private secretary for President Anson Jones in 1844.
June, 1838 To ANNA RAGUET 1
City of Houston, 4th June,. 1838.
Miss Anna: Having learned that by some agency you were induced to be- lieve that I had presumed to address you at a time when I must have been satisfied in my own mind that legal impediments lay in the way of my union with any lady. This may have been the fact as to your belief, and yet the result as to my hopes and my attachments [was] not changed so far as your choice was con- cerned and my wishes or destiny involved. But one thing would still remain for me to reflect upon. You (I assert it with great pleasure) and myself have been friends, and I so highly appre- ciated your worth as to believe that you would not assume to be the friend of anyone whom you did not believe possessed the most undoubted honor and sense of rectitude. Then had I ad- dressed you or sought to win your love when I was aware that the same must have taken place at the expense of your happiness and pride and peace and honor in life, I must have acknowledged myself a "lily liver'd" wretch!!! I believed I was as free from all legal or moral hindrance to any union which might be created as the mountain air which I so much delight to breathe. I was honest . . . I was devoted!!! Of this enough. The enclosed let-
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