WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1841
417
To THE TEXAN CoNGREss 1
Executive Department, City of Austin, December 30th, 1841. To the Honorable, the Senate, and House of Representatives: Gentlemen,- With sensations of deepest mortification and regret, I am constrained to lay before the Congress, the com- munication from the Department of State, transmitting a letter from George S. Mcintosh, 2 Esquire, our Charge d'Affaires at Paris. It will be perceived that his wants are pressing. 3 His own character and that of his country are involved in his em- barrassments. The Executive has no means of relieving his necessities, and therefore respectfully, but earnestly, invokes the earliest attention of Congress to some adequate provision in the premises. Sam Houston. 1 Executive Reco1·d Book No. 40, p. 13, Texas State Library. 2 George S. McIntosh. See Houston to the Senate, June 7, 1837. 3 See McIntosh to Ashbel Smith, May 18, 1842; Castro to Ashbel Smith, May 23, 1842, also June 15, 1842 (confidential note enclosed with official letter); and on June 28, 1842; in G. P. Garrison (ed.), Diplomatic Col're- spondence of the Revublic of Texas, II, Part 3, pp. 1376, 1377, 1378, 1380. As a footnote to the first cited letter Dr. Garrison wrote: "Letters and parts of letters relating to salaries and the financial affairs of Texan agents or charges have generally been omitted in printing the correspondence . .." These letters are among the unpublished letters in the Diplomatic Corre- spondence of the Texas Republic, Texas State Library; but Dr. Garrison ·published enough of them to show clearly that the pecuniary embarrassment of George S. McIntosh had not been relieved on the first of July, 1842.
TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 1
Executive Department, City of Austin, December 31, 1841. To the Honorable, the House of Representatives: I regret the necessity which imposes on me the duty of returning to the House of Representatives, without my signature, and with my objec- tions thereto, a bill for the relief of Thomas H. 0. Addicks.? The question involved in the passage of the bill, so far as regards the quantity of land proposed to be granted, would, of itself, meet no objection. But the singularly broad and general authority given to the beneficiary of the bill to have his location and survey made upon "any lands" which he might "designate or point out," whether they be vacant or not, is conceived by me to be not only
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