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WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1842
439
required for the services of the present, and payment of claims which accrued the past year. The necessity for making some provision for the preservation of our vessels of war, is too obvious to need argument; without suitable means afforded by the Honorable Congress for that pur- pose they must inevitably go to decay and destruction. There is at present no means at the disposal of the Executive which might be used in giving them the proper protection; and he knows no key to the Treasury other than the law of the land. If suitable provision be not made at the present session of Congress we may assuredly calculate upon hundreds of thousands of dollars of loss. I thus earnestly invite the attention of your honorable body to the matter involved; and having done so, I shall feel in the event of failure on the part of the Congress to make the requisite appropriations, that my duty had been discharged to the country. I avail myself of this occasion, also to suggest to the Senate the great necessity of authorizing the appointment of a naval agent and a naval storekeeper. The blending together the duties of the two or more office& as is the case at present, removes every safe- guard to the proper application of the public funds. No check exists; and thousands over and above what would be required to supply necessary offices, are liable to be illegally and fraud- ulently disbursed without the possibility of detection. Sam Houston. 1 "Messages of the Presidents," Cong1·essional Papers; also Executive Rec- ord Book, No. 40, p. 24, Texas State Library. To THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES' Executive Department, City of Austin, January 22d., 1842. To the Honorable, the House of Representatives: In compliance with a resolution of your Honorable Body, of the 19h. instant, I have the honor to transmit the enclosed state- ment from the Auditor, in relation to the claims of sundry persons for services in bringing in Lipan and Tahuacana Indians. The Executive order graduating and reducing the allowance for their services from six dollars in par funds per diem to three because the resolution making provision for their payment, in the opinion of the Executive, left the discretion so to do. The resolution indicates that, at the time of its passage, the claims had been "audited according to law;" and the inference ·was plain
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