WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1841
378
that you went sound asleep in your seat and snored away your time until you were awoke by Mr. McLeod, Secretary of the Senate, by orders of the members. When you were disturbed by being well shaken, your raised yourself up with an ineffably idiotic smile and hiccoughed out- "Gentlemen, I believe-hic- 1 was in a doze." Now, Sir, you are the man who prates about sobriety, morality, religion." Oh, shame, where is thy blush!" Can you have the hardihood to charge any man with drunkenness? Did ever Houston indulge when he had official duties to attend to? Or, has he ever been carried from a grog room? Yet you are the standard of " sobriety! !" Will you, Judge Burnet, or will your friends for you, deny the fact that after the battle of San Jacinto, when you went to Gal- veston on board the steamboat Yellow Stone, that you were so deeply inebriated, that though you attempted to make a speech abusive of Gen. Houston to the soldiers and spectators present, that you failed, but not until the soldiers gave you the d-d lie for calling Gen. Houston a coward? General Houston was then on board the boat, unable to sit up with his wound - when Capt. Turner( since Colonel Turner), who had bravely fought at San Jacinto, went on board several times to try to convey Houston on shore, and informed him of what had taken place: he was too ill to be removed, but on hearing that the officers and soldiers were so indignant, and had spoken of Davy G. Burnet, in connection with a coat of "tar and feathers" he wrote an address to the soldiers, and requested Col. Morgan to have it read to them on parade. In this address, he appealed to his comrades in arms to obey the constitutional authority of the country; and not on account of any wrongs done him to commit any act of disobedience or insubordination. This will be found in the Telegraph of 1836. Can the sober and heroic Davy G. Burnet forget these facts? Yet this is the man whom your GRATITUDE has induced you to slander and revile. You felt a little awkward, we may suppose, and with the Cabinet set sail for Velasco early next day. Thus, we see the sober patriot leave Galveston, after having enjoined the strictest orders of temperance on the Island previous to the battle of San Jacinto, when holding his court at that place. I will say more of the Island hereafter. You, Davy G. Burnet, issued an order prohibiting the use of spirits by the troops on the island upon ·the pain of death. When this order was issued, it was discovered by "Gen. Brown," ( as he is good-humoredly
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