WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1838
289
satisfied if it is not done there will be another runaway scrape and Eastern Texas will be desolated. Direct it to be done im- mediately, and I charge you with its execution; Simms will act as commissioner on the part of the Republic of Texas, and to him you will communicate the order for immediate execution. This done and Eastern Texas will have less to apprehend for its future safety. If it is not done an Indian war may ensue which may cost more blood and treasure than ought to purchase twenty such Indian countries, emigration will be stopped and the mis- fortunes resulting will not be retrieved in ten years. Sam Houston. 1 The Journal of the House of Representatives of the Republic of Texas, 3d Cong., Reg. Sess., 1838-1839, pp. 92-93.
NOVEMBER, 1838 To THE TEXAS CONGRESS 1
Executive Department of Texas, City of Houston, Nov. 5, 1838. The President salutes the Hon. Congress, and acknowledges the call of the gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives as a committee. The informal resolution, by them announced the organization of Congress, and that it was ready to receive any written com- munication, which the President might have to make. Had ·no restriction· been placed by the resolution on the right of the President to select the mode, in which he would convey proper intelligence to Congress, and recommend such measures as he might deem necessary; he had important information to lay before the honorable body, and would have rendered it with pleasure, under the constitutional right secured to him, and in discharge of his duties. But for reasons, which to his mind, are satisfactory, he declines for the present, any further com- munication, than to convey to Congress, the reports of the sev- eral departments and the bureaus attached to them. They will exhibit the necessary data on which the action of the honorable Congress is required. The reports are ample. and evince the attention, intelligence and ability of the officers employed under
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